I’m El! I’m a Vancouver-based photographer and musician. I was born on the east coast of Canada to a family of lobsters, spent a decade-long stint in the wilds of northwestern British Columbia being fostered by bears and learning to eat fiddleheads, moved to the prairies to commune with thunderstorms, then escaped to the moss and rain of Vancouver for a bit of a rest. Somewhere along the way I got my hands on a camera and made a living for myself.
Even in the days of my old point-and-shoot Powershot, photography has been an important creative outlet for me. My mother, a prolific documentarian of my childhood, filled dozens of albums with gorgeous photographs in the rich colours of her 1984 Pentax. These moments—played out against the rural backdrop of small-town-East-and-West coast Canada—were formative not just in my eye for photography, but in what I truly value in my life; soul-soothing forests, oceans, lakes, and mountains, and the beauty of the little, in-between moments of life.
Me, in short-form: possible sasquatch-adjacent-forest-thing / musician / composer / part-fish / snowboarder / #1 kpop dork / min yoongi enthusiast / compulsive sorter / artist / youngest child / sangria-lover / cool aunt / reformed country music fan / (but mostly still listening to radiohead) / useless at video games / board game tyrant / macrame maker / plant hoarder / enough-tattoos-to-have-lost-count / taco missionary / adventurer & world traveler / relentless pragmatist who cries over nature / animals are superior to humans and they are all my best friend.
El has had the pleasure of working
with and photographing artists and
clients including:
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Pabst Blue Ribbon
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Bill Frisell
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Maria Schneider
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Brad Turner
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Capilano University
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André Lachance
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Metalwood
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Donny McCaslin
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Norma Winstone
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Ernie Watts
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Randy Brecker
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Ambrose Akinmusire
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David Braid
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Bill Coon
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Steve Maddock
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Ian Froman
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Laila Biali
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Mike Murley
Me
Hi!
Hey it's me! You can use they/her. Thanks!
I would like to acknowledge that I live on and operate my business from the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. I am committed to healing, reparation, and reconciliation for the harms white people have caused to the Indigenous peoples of these lands.