Biography
BIOGRAPHY
David Ellingsen is a Canadian photographer creating images that speak to the relationship between humans and the natural world. He maintains a varied practice of which intersections form the foundation – intersections of observer and participant, documentary photography and contemporary art, archivist and surrealist, emotion and cognition.
Ellingsen’s photographs have been exhibited around the world and are part of the permanent collections of the Chinese Museum of Photography, South Korea's Datz Museum of Art and Canada's Beaty Biodiversity Museum. They have been shortlisted for Photolucida's Critical Mass Book Award, appeared in National Geographic, and awarded First Place at the Prix de la Photographie Paris and the International Photography Awards in the USA.
Ellingsen began his career as a freelance assignment photographer with clients that included the New York Times Magazine, the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Canadian Medical Association, the Oprah Winfrey Network, People magazine, CBC Radio Canada and MTV/Nickelodeon. Simultaneously, he was exhibiting personal work and appearing as an educator at post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. Ellingsen continued this hybrid path for 12 years and then, in 2013, focused fully on his artistic practice.
Ellingsen lives and makes his work in Canada’s Pacific Northwest, moving between the city of Victoria and the remote island of Cortes where he was raised.