Philadelphia photographer, Ellie Brown, was accepted as a Review Santa Fe participant this year, but as what happened with a number of selected photographers, the economy got in the way of her ability to attend.

The project that Ellie submitted to Review Santa Fe was Korean Notebooks, but I am also drawn to a project she has worked on with her sisters over the past few years, Two Girls. Ellie received her MFA from San Jose State University and now teaches at Rowan University. She was also the receipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2008.

“Since 1996 I have been photographing my sisters in their quest for identity and exploring supposed gender stereotypes. I began by comparing my own childhood to that of my sisters with our different mothers. The work took a shift in content when my sisters entered the pre-adolescence years. Although still very childlike, there was a greater self-consciousness that my sisters naturally gained at this age. They showed greater concern for their appearance in the images and become more directive and critical with the final product.”

Images from Two Girls: My Sisters

“The photographs of Korean notebooks began with the discovery of a number of student notebooks thrown away at the end of the semester. The notebooks were filled with neat Korean writing, some English words, drawings and sometimes scribbles. The notebooks got rained on and the inks bled through leaving a formally beautiful mixture of all of these elements bleeding together. I feel that these notebooks are a metaphor for my time in Korea. “

Images from Korean Notebooks