ABOUT
Since being born in a small town in Tasmania Australia in 1998, I have lived in some of the most beautiful parts of Australia. I have a deep love for the country and people.
My first introduction to photography came when I was 12. My friend and I became interested in movie making. We would hang out, discuss plots, act, film, edit and share with friends.
At 14, I was living in a small coastal town in Western Australia. My life was surrounded with surfing as many days a week as possible. I purchased a Go Pro. While the camera was initially mounted on my board, I was soon tired of the same composition and started to innovate - making different mounts. I began to find joy in filming others.
In my final year of schooling I purchased my first DSLR, a Canon EOS 600D with kit lenses. Although the kit was nothing fancy, I begun shooting more, teaching myself about different camera settings, light and composition.
After school, I was accepted into a creative media arts degree at a James Cook University in Queensland, majoring in photography. I had a clear vision of becoming a photographer.
During my first year at university, I started shooting commercially, for nightclubs, social events and music festivals. Although the experience and money were great, I began to dislike commercial photography as it took away the personal expression. I found myself merely creating work for others and yearned to have the joy of making images for myself again.
I started creating a personal style with my photography again when I picked up a film camera. The process behind analogue photography allowed for a different approach in image making, I started to see it as my creative outlet, and only used my digital camera for commissioned work.
In 2018, I traveled to Melbourne to complete a course in tintype photography. I was fascinated by the process of this archaic technique and the rich, deep quality and tonal range of the images it produced. I decided to use the knowledge of creating wet plate images for my final graduate exhibition at the end of the degree.
I exhibited two series at the James Cook University graduate exhibition: Mobius (hosted at Pinnacles art gallery). The two series were, Enterprise of Despair, and A Dying Feeling. On the opening night of the exhibition I was awarded best photographer of the degree. I officially graduated from the course at the beginning of 2019.
In 2019, I submitted a series of images from my “Portraits of Companions” gallery into Capture Magazine’s Emerging Photographer Award. This resulted to me receiving a place in the top 20 Portrait category.
Throughout 2019, I had a gap year, working as a freelance photographer and traveling. Although the year helped me grow as an artists, I felt I needed more guidance so I pondered the idea of further education. In 2020 I begun my Master of Arts (photography) at Photography Studies College, for this course, I moved from Townsville (Queensland) to Melbourne.
Media:
The Dark Arts (By Benjamin van Houts): Behind the scenes of Enterprise of Despair
Enterprise of Despair 2018 Townsville Bulletin: JCU Bachelor of Creative Media Arts student Elijah Clarke keen to present unique work at ‘Mobius’ exhibition
Enterprise of Despair 2018 Huxley Press: http://huxley.press/2018/11/20/elijah-makes-his-mark/
