Ellen M.

Seaside Heights, NJ 08751, USA

$150 - $2500 / Day

About

Ellen Mitchell is a photographer based at the New Jersey shore, where she grew up and currently resides. Her photos take an often-humorous look at the people, places, and dramas she encounters during her daily life. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, and Italy, and has been published in The Guardian, Lensculture, and American Illustration - American Photography (AI-AP). She has received awards from Lensculture, the New York Center for Photographic Art, and Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP).

Top Services

Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist
Event Photographer
Landscape Photographer

Top Projects

A Brighter Summer Day
This series depicts Jersey Shore lifeguard tournaments, a summer tradition in which I participated as a young girl. The races - usually some combination of swimming, rowing, paddleboarding, and running - embody a quality of grit, of skill as a waterman and an athlete, that young men particularly seek to emulate. They are taken very seriously, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that the only real prestige is local bragging rights.
- Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist
- Event Photographer
After Dark
Nights at the boardwalk were a summertime tradition for teenagers in my hometown. We’d throw darts at balloons, eat huge slices of pizza, and brag about the bars we’d visit once we were old enough. Secretly, I dreaded when that day would come. I found the bars seedy and quite frightening. I watched life after dark with a bit of an anthropologist’s detachment - I remember seeing the scene as a person from a different culture might.
- Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist
- Event Photographer
Toms River
Having played in these woods as a child, it’s hard for me to see them objectively. Other woods are just woods, but these woods are special. The trees are scrubby, not human-like at all, and definitely not shapely or majestic. But I see them through a half-remembered haze of childhood imagination. There are many swampy thickets whose vines curl and fork expressively at eye level. I physically move those plants with my own hands, seeking a way to make the scene come alive for me.
- Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist
- Landscape Photographer
S(l)easide
From 2018-2023, I lived 5 blocks away from Seaside Heights. I referred to photographing Seaside’s side streets as ‘doing my walk-abouts.’ I never had a pre-set idea of the kind of pictures I wanted to make, but I did know what interested me about the town - the summertime crowds, (even if their presence was only implied by closed game booths and shut-off water slides), the kitschy architecture, the dichotomy between a vibrant beach resort and very economically depressed populace.
- Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist
- Landscape Photographer
Benches of Seaside Heights, NJ
On bright summer days, I walk up and down the mile-long boardwalk at Seaside Heights, NJ, and take at least one candid photo of every single occupied bench. I don’t stop to look, or think, or compose, or try to pick the right moment. I take a few shots, without looking, and move on. I intend to continue this series indefinitely, both as an exploration of human behavior, and a chronicle of Seaside’s visitors over time.
- Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist
Sky Rats
Locals call them the rats of the ocean. But in photos, the birds seemed to float motionless across the sky, silent like spaceships, or leap across the sky in a joyous dance. These fleeting movements were imperceptible to me until I snapped them at 1/200 of a second. Captured in the midst of their aerial pursuits, they looked ridiculous at times, and mysterious at others. Mysterious, if only because they are seagulls and we are not, and we can never fully enter into their world.
- Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist

Equipment

Video

DSLR or equivalent

Video

Miscellaneous

Lighting kit

Miscellaneous

All Services

Production Support

Editorial Photographer / Photojournalist
Event Photographer
Landscape Photographer

Production Support

Talent Discovery

Creator Management Platform

Glimmer Studios

Ellen M.

About

Top Services

Top Projects

A Brighter Summer Day

After Dark

Toms River

S(l)easide

Benches of Seaside Heights, NJ

Sky Rats

Equipment

All Services