Born in the farmlands of Maine and eventually migrating towards the tiny city of Boston, Ellei Johndro was an artist from her early years. A nature girl at heart, one of her first artistic endeavors was the process of slowly peeling the white bark from birch trees and using it for painting paper and writing letters to friends. By the time she was 12, she was sculpting full figure comic characters and unusable ceramic mugs. From pottery making she quickly progressed to the art of airbrushing for a very short time before her options were enlightened with a photography class at the age of 15. It was that first class under the tutorial of Mr. Chop that opened her eyes and nose to the sensation of a manual black box and wonderfully scented chemicals. Day in and day out the images were printed and mounted and after a brief three months of passionately working, her first image "Solidified" was entered into a student competition. Ellei was commonly refered to as the next Margaret Bourke-White, but after four years of immersing herself in the art, her true interests and influences became Edward Weston, Lewis Hine, Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. The essence of capturing the moment as well as the true ways of life were her passion. Through her years at Emerson College, her main focus was creative writing where she learned to strongly and persuasively use her voice to tell a story. But the words became weary by her senior year. Ellei's direction was again geared towards the art of photography and her final semester was spent dividing time between a creative fiction thesis and a collection of documentary visuals on street life. Her first gallery show was held in Boston at L'Attitudes in 2002. Having her education completed, Ellei began her quest of searching out the "real" in life. She spent over a month travelling through Europe stopping in Paris, Normandy, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome and Florence. It was in these flourishing and visually stimulating cities that she captured some of her best documentary work. Upon returning to the states, she quickly packed up and drove to the West Coast where she currently resides. Ellei still works on capturing the realities of life as well as beginning her new digital series on color and movement. Contact: ELLEI@SHADOWSCENE.COM