EJ Stern Story

Ellen Stern began her career in photography as a black and white landscape photographer, becoming well versed in the Ansel Adams School of the Zone System. Upon graduation from Clark University, she was awarded a job as an assistant  to a fashion photographer in Milan, Italy. Subsequently, during the next few years she worked for and photographed for the most successful Italian model agency. For the next ten years, Stern worked as a freelance fashion photographer in New York and the mid- Atlantic states shooting for fashion designers, advertising and public relations agencies, boutiques, magazines, and newspapers.  Also, Stern earned her MFA in Photography at The University of Delaware. In 2002 Stern began teaching as an adjunct Professor at The Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She created, directed and taught the Paris Photography Program for MICA for four summers in Paris, France. Stern was hired at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida in 2008 and is a Professor teaching the Photography BFA curriculum. In 2026, Stern was awarded the Kathleen Cheek Milby Sabbatical and is spending the fall semester walking in the footsteps of the inventors of Photography in the US and Europe.