Steve Goldband and Ellen Konar are California based photographic artists, working in dynamic collaboration. Their co-productions are often rooted in the landscape, evidencing Steve’s eye for geometry and light, elevated by Ellen’s interest in memory, meaning, and color. Their commitment to surfacing and resolving their independent perspectives—a process rarely efficient and occasionally fraught—is the engine of their 15-year photographic collaboration that tends toward the abstract and mysterious.
Ellen and Steve’s photo based projects have appeared at iconic galleries and museums in the U.S. and Japan including the Center for Photographic Arts, Carmel, CA; Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, MA; Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA; Soho Photo Gallery, Chelsea, NY; Frederick Layton Gallery (MIAD), Milwaukee, Wi; Awagami Museum, Tokyo, JA; Dohjidai Gallery of Art, Kyoto, JA; Gallery M, Yokohama JA. Their work has appeared in printed publications including Lenswork Magazine, Seeing in Sixes, Dodho, Beta and Lenscratch Magazines. They have received awards from the Triton Museum, Center for Photographic Arts, LensCulture and the Awagami Museum. In 2025, Ellen and Steve were recognized among Photolucida’s 2025 Critical Mass Top 50.
IG: @ekonar, @stevegoldband
Statement
Bayscapes
Visible from our home in the hills above Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay coastline reveals an otherworldly mosaic—a fractured geometry of reds, oranges and whites. The scene is the unintended art of 150 years of industrial scale salt mining destined for industrial kitchens, dining tables and icy roads throughout the U.S. Evident throughout are signs of a fading, feeble industry: teetering wood sluice gates to channel water; rusting rail structures once used to move cars from west to east; and front loaders still pushing saline mounds toward the horizon.
The images are printed on imperfect Japanese papers at substantial scale and in full and true color, to capture the spectacle of the environs. The largest piece in the exhibit is an assemblage of two related images framed to heighten the dialogue between the mechanical extraction of salt and the salt products for human use.
Bayscapes documents this surreal, almost alien landscape as the "tide" turns. A community driven restoration project is actively working to transform acres of salt evaporation ponds back into tidal marshlands and restore native habitats. We intend that these images of the fragility and desolation garner stronger support for restoring what was lost, and fostering a newly vibrant era for the San Francisco Bay.
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