Ella Morton Sketchbook

Fortune

2012-02-05T15:13:00.001-08:00

I made a mural in downtown Vancouver called Fortune, as part of The Crying Room Projects. It's a series of 8 fortunes from fortune cookies. It's up for the month of February 2012 at the corner of Cordova and Main St.

Mojave & Death Valley

2012-01-15T21:47:00.000-08:00

A few more pictures I took in the Mojave desert and Death Valley. These don't belong to a particular series, and I'm not sure what I'll do with them, but might be able to use them for a future project.

New Sighting Pictures

2012-01-13T00:14:00.000-08:00

First two from Pender Island, BC, last one from Death Valley, CA.

Vegas Clocks

2012-01-08T00:26:00.001-08:00

A couple of contributions to my RGB clock project that I took in and near Las Vegas in December. More to come.

Death Valley

2012-01-01T23:40:00.000-08:00

I went to Las Vegas for Christmas and did some exploring in nature in the area. This photo was taken by my cousin in Death Valley National Park. More photos to come soon.

Truck/Person/Torpedo Thing

2011-12-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

YVR

2011-12-08T23:15:00.000-08:00

Bizarre Atmospheric Phenomena

2011-12-04T00:58:00.000-08:00

Granville Island Market RGB

2011-11-29T21:44:00.000-08:00

Shot it on my lunch break.

Strange Meteor Shower

2011-11-28T20:59:00.000-08:00

Abductions

2011-11-18T22:47:00.000-08:00

Abductions is a new series of pinhole photographs I've been working on that examine social representations of the unknown. These pictures depict scenes of people witnessing mysterious figures and lights from what might be UFOs, aliens, ghosts or similar occurences. Most photographic evidence of unexplainable events appears blurry and haphazard. This series utilizes the hazy, surreal quality and colour saturation of pinhole imagery to imitate and exaggerate these types of photographs. The goal of reinterpreting this imagery through pinhole photography is to enhance its emotional potency in hopes of creating an appreciation of the strange and inscrutable.

Skytrain and Mt Pleasant Clocks

2011-11-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

More Clock Images

2011-11-11T23:36:00.000-08:00

Public Clocks

2011-11-03T21:20:00.001-07:00

This is the beginning of a new project I'm working on about public clocks and how they are regarded, ignored, appreciated, becoming irrelevant, etc. I am using the Prokudin-Gorskii process and emphasizing different parts of the red, green and blue images to give a sense of temporality, like the people passing by are ghosts as the time passes.

You Are Here Video

2011-10-28T23:01:00.000-07:00

Watch it here.

Nature is Crazy

2011-10-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Not my picture, but one I came across of the Northern Lights in Iceland. So so so so so so awesome!

Nocturne 2011 in Halifax!

2011-09-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have an installation, entitled You Are Here, in this year's Nocturne: Art at Night festival in Halifax, NS. The event is on October 15th. More info soon!

Pinhole

2011-09-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

A test from a pinhole camera I built. It works! Hooray!

I'm very aesthetically interested in Gondolas.

2011-09-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

The way the top part curves around and hangs on the wire like a finger is so great.

Cranes

2011-09-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

I took some pictures of the cranes down around Coal Harbour in Vancouver, because I like the way they look, but I couldn't get close enough. Need to get much closer.

Really into this artist right now

2011-09-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

Christina Seely

Seattle Show

2011-08-21T12:56:00.000-07:00

http://pcnw.org/gallery/exhibitions/ella-morton/#1

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

2011-08-21T12:51:00.000-07:00

I went to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary a couple weeks ago and photographed some of the scenery out there, in an effort to find new subject matter. These are shot with a Mamiya RB67.

Sooke Holga

2011-07-16T14:25:00.001-07:00

A couple of holga images from Sooke last month. Double exposures and panorama images seem to work really well with a Holga.

Sooke

2011-07-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

I took this picture a couple weeks ago in Sooke, BC. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think these long-exposure photographs may be starting to get repetitive and I need to re-invent things, and come up with a new photographic obsession, or something. I also think I need to try putting a filter over the bottom of the image next time, so that the land and the sky are more the same tone.

RGB Berlin

2011-06-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

I made a few more attempts on my trip in Europe at creating the Prokudin-Gorskii effect. As a reminder, that is when you take three black and white pictures of the same thing, each with red, green and blue filters on the lens respectively. Then, in post-production, you convert each picture, or layer, into a duotone image of the colour of filter it had, and sandwich the three together. This theoretically yields a colour image. I'm still, however, not ending up with images that are very vibrant at all. It could be I'm not getting the exposure quite right on all of the images. Maybe I'll try it again another time.
Any thoughts on this image? Intriguing or dull?

More of Europe

2011-05-25T14:12:00.000-07:00

Freiburg from Above #2

Brienzersee- Interlaken, Switzerland

Graveyard- La Roche Vineuse, France

Long-Exposure Pictures from Europe

2011-05-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

Long-exposure pictures from Europe on my 4x5 camera. More to come soon!

Herz-Jesu-Kirche- Freiburg, Germany

Freiburg from Above

La Roche Solutré- Solutré, France

Limmatquai- Zürich, Switzerland

Oberbaumbrücke- Berlin, Germany

Euroholga

2011-05-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

Holga pictures from my recent trip in Europe, through Germany, Switzerland and France.

New Underwater Photos

2011-03-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

Diving on Vancouver Island this past weekend.

Reverse Pinhole Image

2011-02-07T20:30:00.000-08:00

As stated previously, here is my reverse version of my pinhole image!

Giant Pinhole Camera

2011-01-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

While at Ross Creek, I turned my studio into a giant pinhole camera and made exposures of the trees outside. The actual piece is made up of 24 8"x10" sheets of colour photo paper, so it is 60"x32" altogether. I have plans to produce a negative image of it, which will be cyan and white instead of red and black.

Scots Bay Prokudin-Gorskii

2011-01-18T23:21:00.000-08:00

Another Prokudin-Gorskii composite, this time of the beach in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia. I used regular B/W film instead of infrared film, but I'm still not pleased with the results. I want to try to get much more vibrant colours using this technique. Will try again.

Holga Nova Scotia

2011-01-06T22:04:00.000-08:00

Holga pictures from my time in Nova Scotia.

Halifax, Warped

2010-12-26T16:28:00.001-08:00

Halifax, from the Citadel, on a sunny day a few weeks ago. My shadow in the bottom left corner. Back in Vancouver now, missing this blue sky.
Will post many more images from my trip soon!

The 40 Part Motet

2010-12-13T14:20:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about sound art lately, and how I might like to learn more about it. I remembered this piece by Janet Cardiff, which I saw at the MoMA in New York in 2006. I find it so amazing and inspiring.

Trying to Diversify...

2010-12-11T16:49:00.001-08:00

...my subject matter. Here are some images I shot around the Ross Creek Centre of landscapes, rather than seascapes. I've put then in decreasing order of preference, with my favourite first, but please tell me if you have a different favourite!

Prokudin-Gorskii continued...

2010-12-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

So here are my first "serious" images from my Prokudin-Gorskii experiment with infrared film. I'm a bit underwhelmed. Wish I could get brighter colours out of them. (For some reason they come out very purple??) I think I will try again with regular B/W film, because it seems to come out brighter. I'd like to try one seascape as the sky gets darker in the evening, and one city scene at night. See what those look like.

By the way, here is the link once again to the original work that inspired what I am playing with here:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html

Kingsport

2010-12-06T16:47:00.000-08:00

One more landscape picture that I've been working on. I've been concerned that these images look very similar to my ones from Iceland. Always on my toes about reinventing my work and not overdoing a concept. That said, I've been thinking about how to know when it's important to exhaust an idea as far as it will go, and when it's important to move on. Trying to do a bit of both these days.

That said, here is a documentation of sorts from a new project I've been working on. I turned my studio into a giant pinhole camera and shot some exposures from it. I have yet to find a colour printer to process the prints, but this is a view of outside, looking through the pinhole on the inside.

New Images!

2010-12-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

Some new long-exposure landscape photographs I have been working on here:

Baxter's Harbour

Hall Harbour

Ross Creek Beach

Halifax Panorama

2010-11-27T19:44:00.000-08:00

Halifax at night, looking over to Dartmouth.

Prokudin-Gorskii Experiment Works!

2010-11-27T19:33:00.000-08:00

I tried again to make colour images out of 3 b/w images, as I had tried to do once in the summer. This time it works! My results are still very messy, but clear enough to see how I can proceed to make better ones. The first one is infrared film, though very underexposed. The second is regular b/w film (the developing of which I messed up due to trying to use a developing tank I found without a lid). I am going to try both b/w and infrared again, next time much more perfect.

Grand Pré

2010-11-25T16:30:00.000-08:00

"Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grasses in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands?"

-Bliss Carman, Low Tide on Grand Pré

Bay of Fundy

2010-11-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

I am now at my residency in Nova Scotia! I walked down to the beach from the centre today, overlooking the Bay of Fundy. I had heard about how the highest tides in the world are here, but it didn't strike me how fast and how far the tide moves until I saw it. The tide must have advanced about 20 meters in the half hour or so I was down there. It is intimidating, almost frightening, and very exciting, to see something so big moving so fast.

Solo Exhibition!

2010-10-25T21:29:00.001-07:00

An exhibition of colour prints and a video installation, attempting to address the mystery and inscrutability of the natural world.

A New Way of Looking at Colour Photography

2010-09-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I found this amazing body of work by Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who took colour photographs of Russia around 1909-1912. How is that done? Have a look at the link:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html

I wondered if I could do it myself, and with infrared film. First time, fail. Next time better.

Some last Iceland images

2010-09-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to scanning the last of my holga images from Iceland. Here are a couple of pictures from that last few days I spent there, at the beginning of April. I took a couple of trips in around the south of the country. The beach is very near where the volcano erupted.

BC Underwater Photos

2010-08-15T21:25:00.001-07:00

I went diving a couple times this summer on Vancouver Island and Bowen Island and had some pretty awesome encounters!

The Art Review Blog

2010-06-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

Check out a review of my work on The Art Review Blog!

http://theartreviewer.blogspot.com/

Photo Contest

2010-05-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

I entered a photo contest which has a people's choice award and am trying to drum up votes on my work. If you want to take a moment to vote, the link is:

http://www.artistswanted.org/ella629

Just go to the bottom of the page and click on the 5 stars. Thanks!

Also, here is a spooky picture of Reykjavík taken with my Holga last February while it was snowing very hard.

Ferry Building Exhibition

2010-05-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have some work in a group show, coming up June 1st. I will be showing photographs from my trip to Iceland. If you are in Vancouver, come check it out!

Stykkísholmur

2010-04-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

At the request of one of my most diligent blog followers (my dad), I have made another panorama of images pieced together from Iceland. This is 360 degrees around of the town of Stykkísholmur and its harbour, on the Snæfellsnes peninsula.

Skagaströnd via Holga

2010-04-26T20:48:00.001-07:00

Northern Lights

2010-04-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

From the evening when I was shooting and the Northern Lights came out. They are harder to photography than I thought. It's interesting though how the Holga made this large curvy burn at the top of the pictures.

Double Exposures

2010-04-21T22:54:00.001-07:00

Some more Holga double exposures I made in Iceland:
Hverfjall crater near Myvatn and the sky.

Lighthouse, further up the peninsula from Skagaströnd.

Dimmuborgir gate, mountains, lava rocks and sky near Myvatn.

Iceland Holga Panorama

2010-04-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

Now home from Iceland, I have been working on photoshopping all of the photos I took there. I made some images with my Holga camera, which I like to think of as my "sketching" camera. By that I mean that I use it to take experimental pictures that won't necessarily turn into a body of work. In this picture, I tried to make an in-camera panorama of a beautiful beach we found after a long hike in the Snæfellsnes Peninsula.

Iceland Underwater

2010-03-25T17:01:00.001-07:00

I went on a diving trip this past weekend, in Eyjafjor∂ur and around the North of Iceland, then down to Silfra in Thingvellir Naitonal Park. It was so beautiful and freezing cold! I am thinking about how to pair up underwater images with above-water images. Here are some with similarities.

Car Ride

2010-03-18T07:42:00.001-07:00

I went on a couple of trips this week and entertained myself in the car by taking exposures of 4-8 seconds out the window. This is approaching the town of Varmahli∂ on the way back from Myvatn.

These are on the way back to Skagaströnd from Snæfellsnes.

Big Waves

2010-03-07T04:46:00.000-08:00

It was very windy yesterday and there were huge waves on the ocean. The sun came out in the afternoon and the scene was something like this. The wind is so strong here, you can lean almost all your weight into it and not fall down. It gives new -and maybe more accurate- meaning to the Cat Stevens lyric, "I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul."

Skagaströnd!

2010-03-05T06:24:00.001-08:00

I am currently at an artist residency in a small town called Skagaströnd, in the North of Iceland. Most of my work focuses around water and the ocean, so I have been exploring a lot of beaches around this town. I found a beautiful beach the other night, from which I sewed together several photos to make this panorama. Planning to go shoot 4x5 there as soon as it's not too windy!

Olympics in Vancouver

2010-03-01T11:59:00.001-08:00

A photo I took of these spotlights that were in the sky in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics. 20 minute exposure, from the Burrard Bridge.