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Ellen Cantor
Ellen Cantor
Ellen Cantor

Ellen Cantor

Country: United States

Ellen Cantor is a Southern California artist who uses the camera to reimagine the family photo album and objects that hold personal histories in order to explore the distillation and persistence of memory.

She received a BS from The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and continued her education in Interior and Architectural Design at UCLA.

Her work has been featured in 19 solo exhibitions including dnj gallery, Santa Monica, CA, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Center for Fine Art Photography, and The Spartanburg Museum of Art. She was a Critical Mass finalist in 2015 and 2016 and winner of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers as well as first place in the Fine Art category. Since 2016, she has participated in over 25 national and international group exhibitions which include the Italian Cultural Exchange in Naples, Italy.

Her photographs have been published in Harper's Magazine, Muzee Magazine and SHUTR Magazine and online in Lenscratch, f-stopmagazine, fraction magazine, rfotofolio, Voyage LA Magazine, My Daily Photograph, Lightleaked, a photo editor, Float Online Magazine, thisiscolossal.com and Silvershotz.

Ellen is represented by dnj gallery, Santa Monica, CA, Susan Spiritus Gallery, Irvine, CA and Truth and Beauty Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Upcoming shows:
VISUAL DNA... the language of photographs at dnj Gallery, Santa Monica in March, 2020
Mimi and Her Purses at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA in Spring, 2020

Galleries

dnj Gallery

Susan Spiritus Gallery

Truth and Beauty Gallery

Websites

www.ellencantorphotography.com

@ellencantorfineartphotography

 

Inspiring Portfolios

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More Great Photographers To Discover

Thomas Jorion
Thomas Jorion
France
1976
Thomas Jorion (b. 1976, lives in Paris) photographs urban ruins and condemned buildings, spaces that no longer serve the purposes for which they were built. His work explores the built environment in a state of entropy, inviting viewers to reflect on the relationship between the material and the temporal.My work is based on our perception of time, how it passes and especially its lack of linearity. Some places seem frozen as time passes by. While our society is developing and changing very rapidly, these places are submitted to a distorted passing of time. They seem to be lifeless or in a waking state, although in reality they have their own link with time. I travel the world with one idea in mind, to find and show timeless islands. I choose to enter closed and abandoned places formerly alive, and often places of leisure or prestige to capture and share them. My fascination for the esthetic of abandoned places is the extension of an older tradition. The Romantics enjoyed strolling amidst the ruins of long lost civilizations. Centuries earlier, painters such as François de Nomé (1592 – 1623), Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) and Hubert Robert (1733 – 1808) dedicated part of their work to these forgotten places. Somehow my photos are part of this process. The existence of timeless islands stems from a variety of contemporary phenomena. Though each of these islands has a particular origin depending on its location, all eventually evoke the disappearance of men. In Japan, the line between leisure and consumption is often blurry. Leisure activities that are deemed old-fashioned are disposed of – similar to those handkerchiefs, the “nuigishi,” given out for free on the streets by pretty young ladies. An example of this occurence (occurrence – deux R) is the three-storied, 108-lane bowling alley in a Tokyo suburb. Being out of use for some time, it soon is to be demolished. The expansion of new forms of leisure activities has also led to a booming hotel industry. Better and cheaper flight connections and the growing mobility of global citizens made the world a village, with every destination easy to reach. The province of Izu, which used to be a popular summer destination for the Japanese, is now competing with international destinations as in China or Korea. Hotel complexes or amusement parks now open for business or shut their gates according to short-lived trends in the tourism industry. In America the consequences of the economic crisis have been more disastrous than anyone could hardly have imagined. In the vast landscape of the United States, the possibility to build on new land is considered limitless. The habit of constructing new buildings instead of renovating old ones has proven rather catastrophic for the country. The dramatic consequences can be seen in cities such as Detroit MI, where the “white flag” phenomenon has made matters even worse. Other cities, such as Memphis, TN, or Bridgeport, CT have followed suit. Those cities’ entire cultural and social identities have decayed into ruin. The first places to have become useless for society were theaters, movie theaters, sport centers, schools and churches. Health care institutions, public housing, and judicial systems suffered, too… The failure of American Utopias, photographed by Joel Sternfeld in the late 70s, was already heralding deeper phenomena observed today. On the old continent, the reasons are multiple and the consequences are often the same. Struck by a major structural transformation from industrial to post-modern societies many countries had to turn away from their heavy industry. Gigantic textile factories in Northern Italy have completely disappeared, even sumptuous villas of industrialists were forsaken and left to decay. Twenty years after the reunification this development can also be seen in Germany, where factories became completely unsuitable for the global economy and whole regions became deserted due to migration. There is no denying that these abandoned places now cover all continents and in the name of the profit motive tends to amplify this phenomenon. As for my photographic practice, I wish to conserve the rawness of the places that I observe. This represents a challenge. The frame must be arranged in accordance with the layout of the space and the available light. For me, this reinforces the immaculate and timeless aspect of the place. My use of a large format camera allows me to make sharp and detailed images that contain a variety of focal points, textures, and depths. Capturing the richness of such pictures takes much time, which in turn reduces the number of photographs I can take. The choice of color film is important because it anchors the place within the present moment and allows for a faithful rendering of things seen. This eliminates the austere quality of certain spaces. For example, in the Piedmont theater, the blue, yellow, and brown are muted and soft colors, but they correspond well together to reveal a new beauty. Source: www.thomasjorion.com
Jaejoon Ha
Jaejoon Ha
South Korea
1987
My name is JAEJOON HA. I'm from South Korean and working based in New York City. I’ve been worked about street photography while understanding many place in the world. I got inspired by many people in the city. I’m not afraid of trying to experience and challenge for chasing my dream. I love to keep creating my artworks.
Denise Pensky
Denise Pensky
United States
1950
Based in Albany, NY, Denise Pensky is a street and portrait photographer driven by a desire to capture the essence, emotion, and rhythm of the places and people she encounters. Inspired by Elliott Erwitt’s ability to see the extraordinary in everyday scenes, she looks for natural light and the spontaneous magic of real life, whether in her hometown, on the streets of NYC, or traveling to new destinations. More than just an artistic tool, her camera is a means of storytelling — documenting the people she meets and the worlds she steps into along an ever-evolving photographic journey.
Kay Erickson
Kay Erickson
United States
1949
I have been a photographer since I received my first camera at age 7. After receiving a BFA in photography from the University of Minnesota, Summa cum Laude, I went on to earn a MS degree. I received a Mayoral Proclamation for a project I worked on with the Santa Monica/Malibu School System, teaching educational standards through photography. I also worked with the Boys and Girls Club in Long Beach, California, teaching photography through a grant with the Los Angeles Center of Photography. I started out photographing images using black & white film, then hand-tinting the prints with photo oils. As I combined my love of travel with my passion for photography, I transitioned into digital color photography, making images of diverse cultures and environments around the world. I have worked with several NGOs, including Calcutta Rescue, and the SWIC (Society for the Welfare of Indian Children), both in Calcutta, India. Currently I'm working on a project with the Ojibwe, a Native American tribe in Minnesota, to capture portraits of the elders, and record their spoken word stories for future generations. My work has been exhibited globally, including Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, Colorado, Washington, Amsterdam, Turkey, Paris, Berlin, and Spain.
Michel Daumergue
Michel Daumergue
France
1953
I studied visual arts which allowed me to discover the range of possibilities in this field and I made it my career. Since then, I have tried to adopt a photographic and artistic approach that is as open as possible. I have exhibited alone and in groups my photographs, paintings and installations throughout France (for the most recent, see the News/Exhibitions section on my site). Focused first on a classical approach, I also try other visual experiences to broaden my research. The flexibility and adaptability of photography continues to amaze me, especially since the advent of digital technology. I do not favor any photographic genre and give importance to chance which allows discoveries.
Mahmud Hams
Mahmud Hams
Palestine
1980
Mahmud Hams. I studied media and graduated in 2001. I have worked for the French Press Agency as a photojournalist since 2003. I covered many events for the agency in the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries, including sports. I won many international awards in the field of photojournalism and war coverage. I covered five wars on Gaza and all the stories. I study photojournalism at several universities.
Mahesh Balasubramanian
Mahesh Balasubramanian
India
1973
Mahesh is an Independent Photographer from Chennai, India. His works are published in various international magazines like National Geographic Traveler US, BLUR, Digital Photo UK, Wanderlust UK, Dodho, etc. He has won many international awards like National Geography Traveler Photo Contest, 1x, PX3, IPA, Siena Photo Awards, Monovisions Photo Awards, etc. Adobe has also chosen one of his photos for Adobe Lightroom as a Splash Screen (startup screen). Marina: Marina is the longest natural urban beach of India, along the Bay of Bengal. It is one of the major attractions in Chennai, India. Marina Beach is full of activity in the early morning hours and in the evenings. If we stroll along the beach, we could see kids playing cricket, volleyball matches, fish markets, flying kites and much more. It is also a pleasant experience to walk along the beach during sunrise and sunset. There is full of life at every corner of this place. I have been taking pictures in and around Marina for the past 8 years. I tried to document, the true essence of people activities in & around the beach in various time periods. I wanted to portray Marina Beach’s character and how important it is for people. The following set of pictures is my way of interpretation of Marina Beach, Chennai, India.
Dhiky Aditya
Dhiky Aditya
Indonesia
My name is Dhiky Aditya, I am a professional photographer in the field of fine art & creative photography. from a country full of diverse cultures and natural beauty, namely Indonesia. I live in the land of Java, and have a Javanese culture, an Islamic religion living in the city of SOLO I've been working in the world of photography since 2010 until now.on my photography trip, I looked for what I liked best and diligently in photography, ranging from fashion, landscpe, portrait, travel, digital manipulation or creative art photographers. I have also won several photo or fashion photo competitions in Indonesia, landscape, human, portrait, street & creative photo competitions. I also got a degree at the Indonesia Photo Salon A.FPSI - one Star, Merit Medal General Black and white HIPA 2016, 3nd Winer APEC 2016, 2nd Winer National Award creative categori SONY WORLD PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD 2019
John Coplans
John Coplans
United Kingdom
1920 | † 2003
John Rivers Coplans was a British artist, art writer, curator, and museum director. His father was Joseph Moses Coplans, a medical doctor and a man of many scientific and artistic talents. His father left England for Johannesburg while John was an infant. At the age of two, John was brought to his father in South Africa; from 1924-1927 the family was in flux between London and South Africa, settling in a seaside Cape Town suburb until 1930. Despite the instability of his early home life, Coplans developed an enormous admiration for his father, who took him to galleries at weekends and instilled within him a love for exploration, experimentation, and a fascination with the world. In 1937, John Coplans returned to England from South Africa. When eighteen, he was commissioned into the Royal Air Force as an Acting Pilot Officer. Due to his hearing being affected by a rugby match, two years later, he volunteered for the army. His childhood experience living in Africa led to his appointment to the King’s African Rifles in East Africa. He was active as a platoon commander (primarily in Ethiopia) until 1943, after which his unit was deployed to Burma. In 1945 Coplans returned to civilian life and decided to become an artist. After being demobilised, Coplans settled in London, rooming at the Abbey Art Centre; he wanted to become an artist. The British government was giving grants to veterans of the war, and he received one such grant to study art. He tried both Goldsmiths and Chelsea College of the Arts, but found that art school did not suit him. He painted part-time for clients including Cecil Beaton, Basil Deardon whilst running his business John Rivers Limited which specialised in interior decorating. In the mid-1950s, Coplans began attending lectures by Lawrence Alloway at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Here he was introduced to the budding Pop Art movement, which he would become deeply involved in as both critic and curator. His experience viewing exhibitions such as the Hard-Edged Painting exhibition (ICA, 1959) and New American Painting (The Tate, 1959) helped to solidify his growing passion for not just Pop Art, but American art as well. During this period he struggled as a young artist to find his artistic voice, and developed an abstract painting practice which reflected trends of tachism and Abstract Expressionism pioneered by Americans Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Coplans would later refer to this early painting work as "derivative"; these paintings were shown in exhibitions at the Royal Society of British Artists (1950) and later at the New Vision Center. In 1960, Coplans sold all of his belongings and moved to the United States, initially settling in San Francisco and taking a position at UC Berkeley as a visiting assistant design professor. Here he met gallerist Phil Leider, the future editor of ArtForum. Leider connected Coplans to John Irwin, who wanted to start a magazine. Coplans convinced Irwin that the West Coast needed an art publication: one that gave voice to art that was important, but had not yet received critical attention. He further suggested that it should be published in square format so that both vertical and horizontal images would be viewed equally, thus giving birth to ArtForum's iconic shape—and to the successful foundation of ArtForum itself. Coplans was a regular writer for the magazine. His perspective on art writing was anti-elitist, using popular appeal and excitement over new work to “stimulate debate and awareness” especially for West Coast artists. Finding himself conflicted between his painting and writing careers, he chose the latter and devoted the next twenty years of his life to the magazine, as well as curatorial pursuits and a career as a museum director. It was not until 1981, at the age of 62, that he returned to his career as an artist.Source: Wikipedia John Coplans had a career in reverse. He was 60 by the time he established himself as a photographer, having already had a long and active life as a curator, editor, writer, artist and decorator. A pioneer of selfportraiture, he took large format black-and-white close-ups of his bare body that sent ripples of shock, recognition and frequent praise through the international art world. A major element in the fascination was an obsession with one of our few remaining taboos: the process of ageing and physical decrepitude. And with the anonymity of identity: in Coplans' words, "To remove all references to my current identity, I leave out my head." The blow-ups of sagging flesh, creased folds, odd protuberances and body hair of an old man become the documentary tale of the decline of Everyman. After a brief spell teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962 Coplans co-founded Artforum magazine and, for the next two decades, his career was to be as artistically various as it was financially precarious. Artforum was intended to combat the anti-intellectualism Coplans felt he had encountered at Berkeley, and the notion that there was nothing to be said about art, since you either made it or looked at it. His whole background was in stimulating debate and awareness, at a popular rather than an elite level. Inevitably, as he later explained, "The thing was how to get the eastern establishment to read about west coast art". Within five years, the magazine was relocated to Manhattan, with Coplans acting as west coast editor. As a museum curator, he enjoyed similarly shifting fortunes. His first project was a pop art exhibition at the Oakland art museum, and, in 1963, he became director of the university gallery at Irvine, organising an important show by Frank Stella. From 1967 to 1971, he transferred to the Pasadena art museum. Alongside established artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Donald Judd, he gave Robert Irwin, Richard Serra and James Turrell their first shows. In 1971, Coplans moved to New York to became editor of Artforum, and, in 1975, published his own version of events leading to the bankruptcy and takeover of the Pasadena art museum, “Diary Of A Disaster.” During his seven years at the helm, Artforum increasingly jettisoned the militant formalism with which it had been identified, and became a platform for the catholicity of Coplans' artistic tastes, including19th-century photography and contemporary European abstract art. In 1978, the publisher gave Coplans the choice of buying the magazine or quitting. Not being in a position to do the former, he became director of the Akron art museum in Ohio, where, again, he combined curatorial work with launching a new magazine, appropriately named Dialogue. He also published books on photographers, ranging from Weegee to Brancusi, and started his own photographic experiments. By 1980, Coplans was back in New York, and the following year had his first solo show at the Daniel Wolf Gallery. At last, he had found not only the medium but also the subject of his artistic expression. He called his works auto-portraits, and, created by means of a live-feedback video camera with an automatic shutter, they honed in on the physical landscapes of the body with all the sculptural focus - but without the distortions of the lens - of Bill Brandt's Perspective Of Nudes (1961). This was to become Coplans' constant subject matter. In 1986, he had his first show of self-portraits at the Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York. Sandra Phillips, the long-time photography curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, immediately saw the importance of the work. His first major museum exhibition followed at SF MoMA in 1988, and the exhibition traveled on to the Museum of Modern Art in New York that same year. The work was rapidly acquired and shown by the The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Whitney Museum of Art; in 1997 (the same year he remarried), a major retrospective was staged MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Centre in Queens. He published books of the work, principally the anonymous-sounding A Body, Body Parts and A Self-Portrait, and finally Provocations, which includes his photo-essays and criticism. Coplans has a daughter, Barbara, and a son, Joseph; he has two granddaughters. He was married four times. His fourth wife, photographer Amanda Means, is the Trustee for the John Coplans Trust in Beacon, New York. John Coplans was born June 20, 1920 in London and died on August 21, 2003 in New York.Source: The John Coplans Trust
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Call for Entries
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