Background
Todd McEllan was born in Saskatchewan, Canada. Raised by his parents, a carpenter and an electronic technician, McEllan became interested in taking a hands on approach to photography developing a fascination with visuals that combine different disciplines. Todd enjoys creating his visuals in studio and on location. McEllan's series “Things Come Apart” explores the material world and the everyday.
Process
The Things Come Apart series by McEllan sees the disassembly of modern and old fashioned everyday items such as typewriters, phones, cameras and more recently a plane (which was in fact deconstructed by the manufacturer not McEllan himself). Following an item or artefacts disassembly, McEllan would lay out the pieces/components of each objects and photograph them as a form of documentation in one frame. Then in a second frame, the components would be released from the confines of structure to visualize both the complexity and simplicity of modern and classic pieces. The series brings to mind the consumption of technology in our everyday lives.
'I took a picture of it, but it was kind of boring. I’d seen the picture before. I wanted to do something different. I thought, “Gee, it might be cool if you take things apart and lay them out.” I just found out recently that these are called assembly diagrams. Say you’re ordering a part, the diagram shows you what each part is. I wanted to shoot like that. I ended up laying the telephone parts on a glass plate.'
The second frame came as a cry to understand the elusive beauty of the product after its dissection and presentation. McEllan could see the sturdy, handsome design of products in their full form, and the intrigue of the assemblages components laid out as parts but it wasn't until he 'dropped its guts from the ceiling' that he fully understood what 'Things Come Apart' could be. The resulting photographs —innards arrested in midair or spread, with a serial killer’s logic, beneath the lens can be found as two images per artefact.
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