Punk

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Ellalise Cheri in the studio

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Ellalise Cheri and I got together for a quick photoshoot in the studio. We had been connected for a while but this was our first shoot together and we achieved a ton of great shots. Ellalise was a natural to work with.

Below are some of my favorite stills from the shoot, as well as an interview with Ellalise.

What do you feel when you model? (What is the emotions/feelings you experience?)

If I could describe it in one word, natural! It feels so comfortable and I know it’s where I’m meant to be. It’s like acting, depending on the shoot you have to play a role and that’s one of my favorite aspects of modeling.

What are 3 facts about you?

I was a ballerina basically my whole life and danced up to a professional level

I have my degree in Health Sciences

I am an extremely active girl, I love the gym and enjoy a number of outdoor sports such as snow skiing and boarding, wakeboarding, and hiking.

What is the role of art in society?

To peak your interest and fuel self interpretation and thought.  It’s a visual stimulator, and it conveys beauty through a number of different tools, including your body.

How do you deal with people judging you?

Ignore it, and don’t care.  Know your own self worth and love yourself to the highest level.  I always say if I could marry myself I would.  Nothing wrong with that.  People judge because of their own insecurities. The more you don’t care what anyone thinks whether it be friends, family, or strangers the happier you will be.  As long as you aren’t hurting others and working toward what makes you happy, nothing else matters .

What are some of your hobbies/passions outside of modeling?

Physical fitness , Learning about the human body and how it works , Health, Fashion , Cooking, Spending time with loved ones

If you had to eat cold pizza, what would your topping preference be?

Italian sausage

If you could give your younger self advice, what would it be?

Don’t be so hard on yourself, nobody is perfect.

If you could replace any one of the three flavors in Neapolitan ice cream, what would the new flavor be?

I would replace vanilla with banana

What’s something people might be surprised to know about you?

I was ill for two years and almost died.  No doctor could figure out what I had, so I took it into my own hands and did the research I needed to and completely healed my body.

If you could make up a fun holiday, what would it be?

An extended Christmas that lasts at least 2 months.  I love it.

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What is counter culture

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I think being counter culture nowadays means creating instead of consuming.

We all know America (and the world) is a culture of consumers. On a large scale, we take the natural resources of the planet and convert them into products that consumers (us) buy. There’s a reason when we talk about the economy, we citizens are called “consumers” because we are literally consuming the resources of the planet that we’ve turned into products.

But consuming not only happens when you buy something. You scroll TikTok, you consume. You scroll IG, you consume. Twitter, Reddit, SnapChat, the internet as a whole. It’s short bits of entertainment meant to be easily consumable that you digest for half a second, forget about, and then move on.

This theme of everyone living their lives by purely consuming and not creating is something we’ve seen in movies like Wall-E and Idiocracy. (And in both those films the citizens had to learn to create again to regain their humanity.)

The system itself, is designed for consuming. So counter culture then, must be creating.

Being counter culture, to me, means creating art. (And not with the intention to become famous or make money.) Making art purely for the sake of making art. You don’t just sit around and think of yourself and what other people will think of you, you get up and create something. You take risks, you experiment. You don’t just spend your days consuming.

Just something to think about.

Till next time,

-Oliver Endahl

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If the internet was different

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If Instagram and TikTok didn’t exist, would people still “create”?

Whether people want to admit or not, the thought that nearly everyone has kept in the back of their mind while on a photoshoot for the last 15 years is “Will this do well on social media?”

If you’re a model, photographer, dancer, actor, baker, etc.. Would you still create if you couldn’t post it to a social network? I’ve met many people who were only at the photoshoot to produce “content” for Instagram. And I gotta be honest, that sucks. Cause really that means the thing they’re actually into, isn’t the process of creating art, playing or experimenting. That means the thing they’re actually into is getting validation & gaining social notoriety through posting on the internet.

Here’s another version of the question: What videos would people create and post if you couldn’t follow or like any of the posts?

What if TikTok/Instagram/YouTube didn’t exist, and the only way people could watch a video on the internet would be to have a direct link to an actual website, where the video file was hosted, and that’s it. You couldn’t follow the person who created the video, and you couldn’t like the video. You could only watch it thru a direct link on a website.

How many of the videos that you see on TikTok would still be posted if you couldn’t follow the creators or like the video? I would think, not very many.

And that’s the problem. Whether people are putting out comedy videos, lifestyle content, political videos, outrage at whatever is in the current news cycle that day, etc.. All of these people aren’t actually creating for the sake of spreading the word about their topic, they’re creating to have people hit follow and hit like.

Keep that in mind next time you’re watching a short form video. Ask yourself: “Would they still make and post this video if no one could follow them or like the video?”



Till next time,

-Oliver Endahl