David Ellingsen is a Canadian photo-based artist making work that speaks to the relationship between humans and the natural world. He works predominantly in long-term projects with a focus on forests, biodiversity and climate.

Ellingsen descends from a family of immigrants and the first settlers to reside on Cortes Island - the traditional territory of the Klahoose, Tla’amin and Homalco First Nations - in 1887. A self-educated artist, he draws upon a family history often embedded within British Columbia’s troubled forest industry. His photographs reflect predominantly on the impacts of resource extraction and consumption on past, present, and future eco-systems.

Recent exhibitions include China’s Lishui Museum of Art, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Lithuania’s Kaunas Photo Festival and Canada's Campbell River Museum. Ellingsen’s photographs are part of the permanent collections of South Korea's Datz Museum of Art, China's Photography Museum of Lishui, and Canada's Beaty Biodiversity Museum and Royal British Columbia Museum. They have been shortlisted for Photolucida's Critical Mass Book Award, appeared with National Geographic and Patagonia Books, and awarded First Place at the Prix de la Photographie Paris and the International Photography Awards. In his earlier years Ellingsen was a freelance assignment photographer, eventually working for clients including the New York Times Magazine, Business Development Bank of Canada, Canadian Medical Association, and CBC Radio Canada.

With a place-based practice informed by the landscape of his birth, Ellingsen lives with his husband in the Pacific Northwest in Victoria, British Columbia.