“I often stay in a place for a long time to let the landscape affect me. This is a kind of meeting with the landscape and also with myself. It is meditative. When I experience this silence in myself, I am ready to create my work”
Ellen de Vries
Landscape photographer Ellen de Vries is graduated at the Academy of Photography in Amsterdam, specialisation landscape photography (2004) and also a graduated Geographer at the University of Groningen, MSc spatial planning (1998)
“The perception of space is central in my work. I work on projects with an inquisitive approach to the landscape. Although I do not allow people in my landscapes, evidence of human intervention is often visible”
I started in the era of analogue photography. In 2004 I graduated at the Academy of Photography. Since then I work as a professional photographer/ artist and I still work analogue. With the abundance of images that currently overwhelm us all, I find the quality and quantity of film of increasing value. I capture the space on transparencies. Only 12 shots on a roll of film.
The quality of the slide is unparalleled. I leave the image area completely intact; it’s exactly as I saw it. My photographic world is square. This is thanks to the square frame, 6 x 6, of the camera I work with, an analogue Hasselblad. Within this framework I create my own photographic world.
My tools are a light meter, a medium format camera and a transparency film. I do not manipulate the photos (no Photoshop or such like). I am looking for alienation and surrealism within the photographic techniques. Analogue landscape photography in its purest form.
What people say
Gallery 37 PK
Ellen’s work caught my eye. Careful composition, combined with a specific atmosphere, a keen eye for light and detail, results in beautiful photographic works finished in a high-quality manner.
Drs. Tamara Sterman, Gallery 37, Haarlem
Croon Davidovich Lawyers
Croon Davidovich Lawyers is committed to art. The permanent collection of our office include several works by Ellen de Vries. She makes beautiful analogue landscape photography. Her photos are a daily source of inspiration for us.
Max van Til, partner at Croon Davidovich Lawyers, Amsterdam
Art lovers
We already knew Ellen’s photographic work, but when we saw her Cuba photos in full glory at the Gallery in Haarlem, we knew it for sure. Two art photos are hanging above our sofa. Beauty in decay and stillness that nevertheless speaks -that’s what charms us.
Janke Kerstma & Tim Duyff, Haarlem
Municipality of heiloo
We reached out to Ellen de Vries to help us develop a future vision for our municipality. She visualised Heiloo’s core values. The enthusiasm with which she ‘discovered’ green Heiloo was contagious. Familiar places in the village were captured from a completely different point of view. Her surprising photographs of our cultural heritage exhale nostalgia.
Jacqueline van Latum, Stedebouwkundige Heiloo, Afdeling VROM
Coral Lodge 15.41 Mozambique
Ellen’s work can be described as love at first sight. Her talent for capturing details, colours and compositions of nature and surroundings is a great skill. We wanted to promote our project in Mozambique, with expressive non-standard photos. Ellen has captured particularly well the unique story of the lodge and its surroundings.
Alexandra Otto- van der Ende, Manager Coral Lodge 15.41 Mozambique
“It’s serendipity where nature and the weather rules. It can cost me days finding that image that evokes my ultimate sense of wondering”
Ellen de Vries