Local Ellie shares her love of island life, photography and being a mum

Have you always lived on Tresco?

I came here when I was just two, so apart from time away for education, have lived here for as long as I can remember. My son is now older than I was when I came to Scilly, so I like to think that between us, we’ve lived my whole lifetime here!

How do your Scillonian surroundings inspire you?

I love the endless shades and shapes of the sea and sky that can make the same spot look completely different from one day to the next. The everchanging backdrop challenges your perspective and means you’re always noticing new details in even the most familiar Scillonian scenes. This, I suppose, is what keeps me reaching for my camera a when I’m out and about exploring the islands.

What would your ideal day on Scilly look like?

I’d rise early to watch the sunrise from Old Grimsby (in this ideal world even my youngest would have slept through the night, right?) I’d then head to St. Martin’s or St. Agnes with my family (my partner Sam and our children, Jude and Etta) for a good walk, because we don’t get there as often as I’d like and we’d stop off for a lazy pub lunch in the sun. Heading home to Tresco, we’d sit on the sea wall at New Grimsby and watch the children play with their friends on the beach, right on our doorstep.

What are your top 3 spots on Tresco?

1. The furthest reaches of the North End - from the coastal path you can’t see any signs of civilisation just the amazing textures of heather, steep, craggy granite and the Atlantic ocean.
2. Bathinghouse Porth - Although our beaches don’t ever really get busy, I love that so close to Appletree Bay where half a dozen boats might have dropped anchor on a warm summer day, Bathinghouse will likely still be empty.
3. Its woody interior - Tresco may be very small and it may have been my home near all my life, but there are so many secret winding paths amongst the trees and rhododendron I can still get disorientated and indeed I discovered a gorgeous path through the woods in lockdown that had managed to totally escaped my attention for thirty years!

How was Island Images born?

It was the beginning of last year, the cusp of the first lockdown and I was heavily pregnant. In what I think must have been some strange form of financial nesting, I hatched a plan to release a Tresco calendar and took to social media to sound the idea. The response was positive and so I boldly (and some might argue foolishly) invested in a batch of calendars hoping they would be a means to make our family finances a little more robust. Luckily, with the support of Tresco Estate, who were really keen to back my endeavour and an online platform to sell on in the form of The Island Makers, sales went well and I was soon selling notecards, wooden postcards and prints too. With the pandemic related travel restrictions in place, I also found there was demand from local businesses for affordable commercial photography from within the islands and I happily found things taking off in that direction too!

How has the business evolved so far and how do you see it progressing in the future?

My fundamental goal is to take on more and more freelance photography, working together with local businesses and promoting self-sufficiency in our local economy and community. I had also earlier envisioned that by this summer, I would be selling notecards and postcards celebrating Scilly more wholly. I love all the islands, not just Tresco, but the pandemic and having two very young children has made getting to the other islands with my camera quite tricky! This remains on the cards for the future, but for now I’ve taken a slightly different route to representing all of the islands in my work. Inspired by a successful collaboration with Bryher Jasmine, another (awesome) small Scillonian business for whom I illustrated and designed a print, I took to my pens, rather than my lens, to produce some illustrative work that’s coming soon!