20th Anniversary Issue: Ellen Jantzen

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20th Anniversary Issue: Ellen Jantzen

August 26th, 2023 by fstop

As part of F-Stop Magazine’s 20th anniversary celebration we invited past featured photographers to share with us some thoughts and reflections. We asked each photographer to consider how their photographic work has changed over time, how the changes in photography over the past 20 years may have affected or influenced that change, and to share what they are up to most recently.

By Ellen Jantzen
https://www.ellenjantzen.com/

Thinking about the last 20 years of Photography.

My photo work began in 2003 so aligns perfectly with F-Stop’s 20th Anniversary.

My current work is substantially different from my early work.

A little history: Back in the late 1990’s I was drawn to working three-dimensionally, in a hands-on manner. I began sculpting with recycled paper. I spent several years creating forms that included natural elements like twigs and branches. Nature and natural forms have always been important to me. I started to document my work using an early digital camera.

Incantation, 2003

Mellifluous, 2003

In 2003, as digital technology advanced and newer cameras were producing excellent resolution, I found my perfect medium. It was a true confluence of technological advancements and creative desire that urged me to transition from 3-D work to photography, initially using my sculptural forms as “models” for my still life photos. I gradually transitioned into using other objects as my subjects, all the while concentrating on the graphic nature of my photos.

Anomalous, 2006

In 2008 I began using my husband as a model. I was still intent on creating graphically interesting imagery, but now I brought something else to the works; communicating my inner feelings. I continued in this vein for a few years, gradually becoming more involved in reflecting my life. Most of this earlier work took place in Southern California but after a move to the Midwest in 2009, a shift took place. I was beginning to familiarize myself, once again, with the Midwestern landscape I had grown up with. Also, being around family again was a great influence.

Emanation, 2009

Back to Nature, 2010

Dematerializing, 2010

Obligation, 2010

2011 was the beginning of a deeper involvement in themed photography leading to “series” that had a strong point of view that were heavily influenced by my inner feelings. My mother-in-law was slipping into Alzheimers and I began to wonder how does one experience loss? What does loss look like? I became intrigued with how a person adapts to these losses; how they are absorbed by events and changed. I set about to address these issues through a photographic photosynthesis in this body of work, choosing photography as the medium to help me reveal reality while at the same time transform that reality to reflect a loss. In those images, I placed my husband (Michael) in various environments where a loss of some sort has recently occurred. Some of the losses were very specific and personal and some were of a general, universal nature reflected in an inner state of anguish and eventual acceptance.

Mystify, 2011

In The Field of Gold, 2012

Attaining Bliss, 2013

Let The Others Follow, 2013

This lead directly to my series Place of Departure (2014) that I began after my father passed away and I continued on this when my mother passed. I felt that my life was fundamentally changed. Where did my father go? Are my parents now united? What does a life mean after it leaves it’s body? Does the life-force rise and connect the terrestrial with the celestial or does it evaporate into thin air? These are the questions I was grappling with as I begin this series.  In 2015 we moved back west and settled in Santa Fe, NM. This brought about a shift to landscape photography. A new environment can bring both delight and a fear of the unknown. How does one grow into feeling at home? How does one visually capture the essence while at the same time striving to understand? Add to that a landscape (the American West) that is fraught with cliché, and I found myself desiring to bring my new home into focus, to make it my own.

Conquering The Pull of Gravity, 2014

My most recent works involve melding the photos I took during my Midwest years with images I was capturing here in New Mexico. I call this series “Mid+West” and am quite pleased with the results. Here I am exploring how one’s landscape, whether rural, suburban or urban, can utterly reshape them and how through relocation they grow and flourish. They become, in essence, a blending of all former homelands with the present.

Extrusion, 2016

Barrier Relief, 2017

Equilibrium, 2018

GallupLakeside, 2019

Chromatic Aberration, 2023

Way to Round Earth, 2023

Location: Online Type: Essay, FStop20th

Sue Baum says:

August 27, 2023 at 12:20 pm

which ?
which ?

which ???

is or are…the more profound? the photos or the words?

Ellen Jantzen, thank you for expressing in many ways what many of us feel.

Your capture of ‘humanity’ is stunning and worth sharing.

Thank you for You!

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