We’re thrilled to welcome Chloë Ellingson to the team as The Local’s new Visuals Editor.

Chloë is one of this city’s best photojournalists. She regularly works for publications like The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, and The Guardian. Her long-term projects—from a photo essay aboard a remote, Indigenous-run railway in rural Quebec to a remarkably intimate series following midwives—are stunning works of immersive journalism that mirror the kind of ambitious, longform work we love at The Local.

Working with us over the past few years, Chloë has been responsible for some of our favourite images. She can make a simple assignment—like a portrait of a candidate in a Toronto District School Board by-election or an image from the underground shopping mall, the PATH—feel epic. And her work on our feature stories, collaborating with writers to try to capture a neighbourhood or a specific environment, is always stunning and revelatory.

“I really like creating order in a picture,” says Chloë. “Sometimes that order is made in a flurry of chaos and movement and layering. But I want a photograph to be satisfying to look at.”

As our new Visuals Editor, Chloë will be bringing her sensibility to the editor’s side of the desk. She’ll be responsible for working with our talented contributing photographers, as well as illustrators. She’ll also keep taking photos for us.

Excellent photojournalism and illustration has always been part of The Local’s DNA. We’ve won back-to-back photojournalism awards at the National Magazine Awards, under Editor-in-Chief Tai Huynh, and we pride ourselves on working with both established and up-and-coming artists to make our written journalism come alive. Bringing someone as talented as Chloë Ellingson onto the team is doubling down on our commitment to that work, and we couldn’t be more excited.

We spoke with Chloë about making the shift to the assignment desk, and how she approaches photojournalism.

What made you want to be a photographer?

I wanted to explore human experience and motivation in a non-prescriptive way. The photographs that inspired me most at the beginning were those that got really close to people, and portrayed intimate portraits of life. It also just works for my personality. When I found photojournalism, my lifetime of being a quiet but keen observer seemed to suddenly make sense.

What does good photojournalism look like to you?

Good photojournalism opens something up in a viewer. That could mean revealing a sense of empathy, refining a perception, or making links between ideas that hadn’t been connected before.

What kinds of stories are you most excited about covering with The Local?

I’m excited about the stories that allow for collaboration between writer and photographer, in which there’s a back and forth of building upon ideas, and the whole ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. I’m excited for stories that bring new voices to The Local, and that allow photographers to feel that they are reaching their potential.

You’ll also be assigning illustrations. Are you excited about that switch? How is it different from assigning photographs?

I am! Assigning illustration is very different from assigning photography. When I assign a story to a photographer, we communicate prior to the assignment and I convey what it’s about and what I hope to see. From there, it’s all in the photographer’s hands. There’s a lot of trust and letting go involved on my part. Illustration has the potential to be a more collaborative process. There’s the opportunity to revise. Working with illustration has helped me better understand what photography is. Photography can be illustrative, and it can also be journalistic—on the ground, immersive, and gathering information that forms a story. In its journalistic form, photography is reporting using a visual medium.

What’s something non-journalism-related that readers should know about you?

I’m into plants. Perennials, scattering annual flower seeds, cultivating indoors over winter, all of it. When I’m taking phone calls while on a walk, it’s not uncommon for me to interrupt the conversation with commentary on any number of stunning plants I encounter. I’ve become my mother in this regard. I will be rooting for a plant issue at The Local.