All images by Ellen Stagg. Used with permission.
Nature in its purest form is stunning, calming and great for the nervous system. When creative photographers like Ellen Stagg apply their flair and technical knowledge, it opens an entirely new world to step into, which is exactly what I did.
Ellen Stagg.
If you’re familiar with Stagg’s work, you will know she is best known for her raunchy, boundary pushing photography. However, peacefully nestled within her portfolio is a selection of images that reveals a more gentle, poetic side to her creative mind. It does not rely on impulse but instead offers a more methodical, centering take on digital consumption.
Her creative methods intrigue me most. I wanted to understand her inspirations, her use of the double exposure technique and why this work exists within her wider portfolio. She was happy to answer a few questions.
Them Frames: Hey Ellen! Please, could you give us a little back story on your early life experiences and how they shaped the artist you are today?
Ellen Stagg: I have always been an artist. But I started photography in High School in 1994, still shooting on film and loved it. I ended up at the School of Visual Arts for my BFA in Photography, graduating in 2000. Looking back my father wasn’t an artist but he loved the arts and he took us to so many museums and different countries that it helped to shape me.
Them Frames: I love the symmetry and vibrancy in your fine art work – what tends to inspire your ideas?
Ellen Stagg: My fine art multiple exposures are shot with a Holga and real film, either 35mm or 120 and most of the manipulation is done in camera with me only just forwarding the film a tiny bit. I have a process video on my website to explain to those who don’t understand film as we live in a digital age now.
I do scan in the images and retouch out the dust and with most of the nature stuff I end up kaleidoscoping the images in photoshop to give it a rorschach test kind of feel. I want people to get lost in nature and see what they want to see in the images. I have heard so many things from pigs, to vulvas to faces. Once art is out there it’s for the viewer.
Them Frames: This section of your work is quite different to what you’re known for. Why did you specifically choose natural elements like flowers and water as a break away from your usual style?
Ellen Stagg: Because Robert Mapplethorpe and Georgia O’Keeffe. They are big inspirations. It is very hard to hang naked bodies on your wall at home but nature people are ok with it.
I also love nature so much. I have a membership to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and it’s my happy place. Nature is where we can slow down and reset. Plus nature is fleeting, flowers don’t last, the ocean is constantly moving, the sky shifts, to capture that fleeting moment on film is timeless.
Them Frames: You spoke in the past about having Lyme’s disease – how are things today and in what way can being creative through photography help manage a chronic health condition?
Ellen Stagg: I still have Chronic Lyme and got bit during a shoot in Long Island. It was a rough road and I have flare ups sometimes still to this day. I stay away from gluten, I exercise, take many supplements for my immune system and get good sleep and that helps a lot.
It can be hard to have the time to be creative through everything (work, sleep, socialising, chores, exercising) but I’m an artist to my core and if I can’t create art I’m miserable.
Them Frames: We love music here: If you could blend a song or album to your fine art photography, which would it be and why?
Ellen Stagg: I love Everything but the Girl, the album Temperamantal. I would say that is very inspiring to my art. But I’m very affected by music, and sometimes it distracts me. But I think very cinematically too, and music scores my life
Them Frames: Finally, please finish this sentence: I need photography in my life because…
Ellen Stagg: it helps me remember. It’s my diary, it’s my expression and it’s my craft. I look at light the way people look at a loved one. Photography is light and composition, if you don’t have that it’s not a great photo.
You can see more work from Ellen Stagg by visiting her website and Instagram. She also sells leggings with her multiple exposures on them on her online store. Ellen also writes and shares her industry experience on her Substack.
More reading: Mustafa Seven On The Art of Truly Seeing Your Subject
