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David Ellis

Photographer & Filmmaker

Photographs and mixed media works

See The Extraordinary In The Ordinary

There really is no “ordinary”.
If we look closely, we can often see the extraordinary in what appears to be an everyday object, place, or moment.

It is all about “seeing”, which is deeper than just “looking”, about taking the time to actually “see” the magic that is in things and moments all around us, all the time.

I use many “photographic tools”;
Phone cameras, antique box cameras (from early in the last century, that STILL function with 120 roll film or as pinhole adapted cameras), Polaroid cameras, vintage super-8 film cameras and video cameras.

I construct my own cameras from tin containers or retrofitted hybrid cameras made by attaching box cameras to vintage Polaroid cameras,creating what is called “pinhole” or stenopeic photos, in which there is NO lens at all, but just a very thin sheet of metal with a tiny pin sized hole as an aperture, that allows light to enter, creating an image on photo-sensitive paper or film inside the camera.

My images capture the extraordinary in the simplest of subjects or fleeting moments and the experience of discovery and experimentation is equally extraordinary, exciting, and all magical…always full of surprises!

Thank you for viewing my work. I hope you enjoy the experience
as much as I enjoy creating it!

David Ellis
Pézenas, France

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David Ellis
Award winning filmmaker & photographer

JPG cropped augenhöhe booth portraits with Nizo Scan copy 2_edited.jpg

CURRENT PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECTS

Les Choses du Quotidien
See the extraordinary in the ordinary

“Les Choses du Quotidien” is a collection of images recording everyday objects or moments in the form of still images captured on film or video. If we look closely, we can often see the remarkable in what appears to be an everyday object. It could be a moment seen from the window of a train as it speeds along the rails, or a simple object found in a flea market. It’s all about “seeing,” which is deeper than just “looking.” It’s about taking the time to truly “see” the magic that is in the things and moments around us, all the time.
Some images are single stills edited from video or a vintage Super-8 camera.
Upon editing, often there will be a moment in the video or film that seems extraordinary, but has escaped the eyes as a fleeting moment. Many photos are objects that I discover in junk shops or flea markets, which seem to me, to have a spirit or an “inner life” of their own.

Exploring a new digital avant-garde.

Award winning director/filmmaker, David Ellis, has emerged notably at the forefront of a new wave of experimental film making and photography. With a fiercely original, distinctive and visionary style, his film-works are original and innovative cinema where traditional storytelling is redefined through the absence of dialogue or defined narrative. In this non-traditional approach, the interplay of image and sound leaves the viewer to create their own narrative in cinema created as pure visual poetry. Without the burden of narrative or limitation of language, it is intended to be responded to as the pure art of moving image and sound.

In his exploratory approach to film making, the "film" no longer needs to “make sense” as viewers form their own stories.

As an artist/filmmaker, he is influenced by Zen Buddhism and by early 20th century experimental avant-garde films by artists such as Fernand Léger, Man Ray, Viking Eggleling, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttman and others. His recent film works employ influences from cubism, and Russian Constructivist & Suprematist works by such artists as Rodchenko, Malevich and Lyubov Popova, employing the design elements as a pure graphic art form.

While avant-garde in the same spirit as those early film pioneers, his work is non-narrative in the traditional sense, exploring the moving image, and the inter-dependency of the movement and the evolution of the image on the screen with similar qualities in the sound that accompanies it. These works utilize this relationship of sound and image so that the sound is not simply a “cue” to “ready” the audience’s responses to the film. Audio is no longer simply a background to fill an empty space around the visuals, but is on an equal trajectory with the image as an essential component.

Selected Film Festivals & Awards

2025 - Fotofilm Internatıonal Short Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey - NO SIGNAL - Finalist Award

2023 - JA FEST International Poetry Film Competition - Lisbon, Portugal - Long Departure

2022 - AIDFF Athens Int. Digital Film Festival -Long Departure

2021 - OneTakeFilmFestival,Zagreb, Croatia

2021 - Suspaustas Laikas, Vilnius,LT - NO SIGNAL

2019 - New Filmmakers NY - Lamentation For Lost Dreams - 3 Études

2018 - VIFF Vienna Independent Film Festival - Lamentation For Lost Dreams - Three Études

2018 - SENE Film Festival - Providence, RI - Time Retrograde

2017 - SENE Film Festival - Providence, RI - Long Departure

2017 - Open Air Film Festival, Minsk, Belarus - Long Departure

2017 - London International Short Film Festival - Time Retrograde

2017 - Girona Film Festival,SP - Time Retrograde

2017 - Prague Independent Film Festival - Time - Retrograde - Award Best Experimental Film

2017 - Vienna Independent Film Festival - Long Departure & Time-Retrograde

2017 - US Super8 Film & Video Festival - Long Departure - Winner Best Film

2016 - PIFF Prague Independent Film Festival - NO SIGNAL - Winner Best Experimental Short

2016 - Boston Short Film Festival, Boston, MA - Long Departure - Best Experimental Short

2016 - Dallas VideoFest, Dallas, TX - Long Departure

2016 - VIDEOMEDEJA, Novi Sad, Serbia - Long Departure

2016 - Cannes Short Film Festival, Nice, FR- NO SIGNAL

2016 - Blow-Up Arthouse Film Festival, Chicago - UHF

2016 - Experimental Superstars Film Festival, Novi Sad,Serbia - XdubX

2016 - SENE Film Festival, Providence,RI,USA - NO SIGNAL - Audience Award

2016 - U.S. Super 8 Film & Video Festival - NO SIGNAL - Honorable Mention

2016 - Manchester International Film Festival,UK - XdubX

2015 - 401 Film Festival, Providence, RI - UHF

2015 - New Jersey International Film Festival - U H F- Honorable Mention

2015 - Festival Parachute Light Zero, Paris, France - U H F

2015 - HANGAR Centre de Producció, Barcelona,SP - Solo screening

2014 - LIVEMEDIA- Webcast interview & screening - Palabras Perdidas - Barcelona, SP

2014 - HANGAR Centre de Producció, Barcelona, SP - Awarded 3 month filmmaker residency.

2014 - VIDEOFORMES International Digital Arts Film Festival,Clermont-Ferrand, FR - U H F

2013 - RhodyWood Indie Film Makers, Providence, RI

2012 - Gallery Eva, Provincetown, MA. - Selected Shorts

2012 - Indie Fest, La Jolla, CA. Award of Merit - FLASH-FILMS

2012 - Atlanta Shorts Fest, Atlanta GA. - FLASH-FILMS

2012 - Oak Cliff Film Festival, Dallas TX. - FLASH-FILMS

2011 - Provincetown Int. Film Festival, US - NEON

2010 - BAC-11 Festival, Barcelona, Spain - NEON

2010 - DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA - FLASH-FILMS

TO VIEW MY FILMS ON VIMEO.COM PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR THE VIMEO LINK

PINHOLE PHOTOGRAPHS

Pinhole, or "stenopeic" photographs, are photographs created without a lens. A thin sheet of metal, perforated with a pin to create the aperture replaces the lens and allows the light and image to enter the camera and create the image, often creating very dreamy, soft focus or painterly images. The following is a sampling of the many different experimental images I have created using a variety of pinhole cameras I have constructed.

Pinhole Photographs Using Tin Containers

Polaroid Pinholes

Hybrid Cameras

Early 20th c. back-loading box camera attached to 1960's Polaroid cameras,a pinhole adapted Polaroid 210 camera with its lens replaced by a pinhole strip and an early 20th c. box camera with Polaroid back attached.

These cameras create very soft images on Polaroid pack film due to the pinhole pierced aluminum pie plate strip replacing the simple glass box cam lens. The box camera "bulb" setting lever is perfect for the often long exposures

POLAROID PINHOLES

USING HYBRID - SELF CONSTRUCTED CAMERAS

I have been experimenting for some time, shooting pinhole photographs using converted 1960's pack film Polaroid cameras. Some I have removed the lens from, and replaced it with a thin sheet of aluminum pie plate with a tiny hole created by piercing the metal with a pin. I rig the Polaroid camera shutter lever to open and close manually, as I count the seconds for exposure. Polaroid development times vary greatly depending on the film type.

HYBRID cameras, I construct by using an early 20th century "back loading" box camera, that I remove the back door from to attach to a 1960's Polaroid pack film camera that I remove the bellows from. The box camera is then attached to the Polaroid "bellows-less" camera. The bulb setting lever of the box camera is perfect for the longer exposures required. The simple glass box camera lens, when left intact under the strip of aluminum with the pinhole, creates Polaroid images that are soft and often very dreamy. The images can be equally dreamy, or at times sharp, when the lens is removed and replaced by the pinhole metal strip as the aperture.

PINHOLE VIDEOS

I began experimenting with the idea of converting or adapting video camera to shoot in pinhole. Most of the images here were captured using (now out of production) one-time-use pocket video recorders and the same pocket recorder that had a flip out USB for downloading the videos. As the lens was attached to the chip in the camera, making it almost impossible to remove, I attached a thin strip of aluminum pie plate over the lens with a tiny pin pierced hole in it as the new aperture. The chip in the camera was not created for this strange light source, and it recorded the images in a very soft and painterly fashion. I LOVE the results!

Pinhole Video
Still Frames

Vintage Boxcamera Pinhole Photos

Here are images captured using vintage box cameras that have been converted or adapted to pinhole. Through the years I have shot many pinhole photos with my assortment of box cameras, using either medium format 120 film (which is still available) or Ilford RC matte paper to capture images as paper negatives to contact print in the darkroom. The bulb setting lever on the box camera is ideal for the longer exposures needed for pinhole capture. I often remove the simple glass lens and replace it with a thin strip of aluminum pie plate pierced with a glass head pin to create the aperture where light enters and exposes the photo sensitive surface inside, creating the negative to print from.

( The photo to the right is of me with one of my box cameras in my Pézenas, France atelier ).

Still Frames From Video & Super 8 Film

Over the years I have shot many videos and super 8 films and screened many experimental films at festivals. I am especially fascinated by shooting film and video from a moving train as well as in the streets. Film is shot at 18 fps usually and video at around 30 frames per second. In this time continuum that is captured, there are many instants that pass unnoticed by our eyes. I love to review the images frame by frame to discover what surprises lie within, then extract and print them out as still photos. Here are a few of my favorite still frames.