I'm watching Gladiator today. Brilliant!
In other news, this article about me, written by David Bollt (creator of a great-looking model/artist site) is particularly cheering... Some incredibly kind words about my work, followed by my answers to some interview questions on what I love and dislike about this job... Some of the content was taken from an email I sent to a fellow model I met once, on the subject of 'balance', as we were emailing at the same time as I was thinking about my responses - and we models talk! - but mostly it's a bit 'stream of consciousness'-y.
Images of Ella Rose shine like gem stones in the portfolio of one talented photographer after another. Ella is a golden thread that weaves itself through the artwork and photography of many renowned creative talents. Her images radiate a warm natural light, and she seems to feel perfectly at home expressing herself as a nude model.
Although she has a romantic spirit, Ella is also very practical and manages her modeling career with discernment and great care. Ella is a very rare type of fine art model, who has turned her passion for modeling into a ongoing source of personal fulfillment, as well as a thriving full time career. One of her biggest challenges, is balancing her passion for modeling with the many other things she is strongly inspired by, including dance, writing and music.
Ella thrives on adventure and new experiences. She has a poetic way of relating to the world and savors the magic of special moments. Her modeling is a diary that she shares with the world. Her images are a record of her travels, her self expression and spirit.
“You might have wandered around the streets of Paris, but have you posed nude at 3am with the Eiffel Tower as your backdrop? You might have driven past some stunning vast deserts or dry lake beds, but have you laid down on the cracked earth with a view of the stormy sky above, or negotiated your way through heat, cacti and rocks in the name of photography? Have you got up close and personal with ancient, enormous rainforest trees? Or bathed in a bed of bluebells in the English springtime? When I look through my portfolio it’s just a huge catalogue of some amazing moments I’ve been lucky to experience.”
Ella Rose is a wonderful example of how fine art modeling and nude modeling can make the world more beautiful. Her images portray a distinct feminine beauty that is light, graceful and natural. Connoisseurs of human beauty enjoy her work, savoring artistic modeling at its very best.
Q: What effect do you want your work to have on people?
I want people to find the images I’m in beautiful, interesting, or powerful. I also want them to be inspired in some way, to create something themselves, to know or feel something new about humanity via what I am projecting.
Q: What inspires you? And what does it feel like to be inspired?
Being inspired is a feeling of being energized and excited. Anything can inspire me, in real life, or my imagination. On a photo shoot, a photographer with ideas, something they want to try (whether that be a new lighting technique, a post processing technique, a mood or atmosphere, process or goal) can be inspiring, or music in a studio, or landscape or the location. I am probably most inspired when doing something that is new to me, in some way.
Q: What is the most rewarding thing about modeling?
There is so much I love about this job. I have never been able to picture myself working for someone else in a conventional setting (and for me I am largely unable to do something unless I have first envisioned it; a fact that comes into its own when learning new dance routines; it’s a matter of the brain getting there first, then the body), so ultimately, the fact that I am self employed, in control of my own schedule, able to plan my working week how I like, is so liberating and wonderful.
Secondly, I get to be creative. I get to play an array of different roles for the camera, explore aspects of myself, womanhood, character, narratives and stories. I get to look back at images of myself when I’m 95 and think ‘huh, that was cool – I remember that day!’ (and being frequently immortalized by someone who has been commissioned to paint the most prominent members of our human society is very high up on that ‘proudest moments’ list!), I get to inspire people and be the catalyst for their own creativity and watch them surprise themselves with what they can capture. I also meet an amazingly wide range of people under the umbrella of ‘artists’; and, seriously, I have met some incredible eccentrics, some more down to earth, some meticulous techno geeks, people with crazy energy and huge enthusiasm, others more calm and gentle, some drifters, some dreamers, people who have influenced me in ways they might not realize.
Q: What is the most difficult thing about modeling?
I think, for me, the most difficult thing about modeling concerns a question of ‘balance’, and that’s something I’m sure many people in all walks of life can relate to. Aside from the fact that, as any full time model can tell you, the ‘admin’ side of things takes up so much time (I am always a bit behind on emails simply because I get so many (which I am of course grateful for), and there always seems so much to do, seeing as I am my own manager, PR, booker, PA, website creator, travel agent, schedule planner… etc., and that’s alongside the actual photo shoots, which themselves are alongside real life!), I have so many other interests and dreams I want to simultaneously pursue (music, writing, languages, dancing, creating…), that I’m continually reassessing my life/work balance and trying to better arrange my time between different hobbies. I’m a very disciplined and organized person, so I generally do OK with time management, but I recently decided to stop and look at things in relation to who I am as a person and try to arrange my time and priorities to reflect that and give me the best chance of feeling fulfilled and getting the things done that I want to do.
Modeling can be all consuming. I have learnt not to particularly try to impress others; I can’t say I ever particularly did try to do that, but I am more aware of the ‘not trying’ now. It would be extremely easy to get sucked into doing ‘more and more’ and ‘better and better’, more ‘shocking’ stuff, in a way that is not positive in the context of my own life. I’m proud of my portfolio and definitely take pride in my work, but I have never felt I’ve reached my full potential with it or done everything I could. (Perhaps that’s a good thing.) Modeling has a very addictive aspect (for someone like me who has an ambitious personality) – it would be so easy for me to say ‘forget the novel, I’m gonna show everyone what I can REALLY do!’), do some extreme self-marketing, shoot with everyone whose work I admired, get some killer shots, make tons of money… but whenever I start having thoughts like that I remind myself that what I’ve done is sufficient as it is and it’s unfolding well at a natural pace, I’ve been part of some excellent images already, that modeling is not solely who I am, and that it’s OK not to feel like you’ve DONE everything possible if it means I am also able to spend time on other things I love, so for me, modeling less than I quite easily could and taking control over those urges is my way of putting some perspective into practice after thinking about what I want to have achieved in 6 or 12 months time.
Finally, balancing creativity with the fact that modeling is a job, is also a difficult trick to conquer. I don’t take bookings from photographers whose work (or personalities) I really don’t like (this has nothing to do with where they are along the beginner-experienced spectrum; it’s only a question of taste/intention) simply because it’s not worth the money to me to have a bad experience doing something I love. I don’t want to jeopardize my enjoyment of playing the role of a ‘muse’, so it’s something I am conscious and careful about. It’s a difficult issue though; you can’t pay bills with pretty images, and I know that I am lucky that I can pick and choose what bookings I take to an extent.
Ella Rose is a professional (traveling) model. She is primarily an art model but experienced in dance/movement, nude, fashion, lingerie, sports/fitness, commercial/lifestyle, wedding, beauty, portraits and artistic/classy glamour modeling. Ella is also an accomplished writer with a BA (Hons) degree in Philosophy and English Studies. You can also find her work at Model Mayhem.
