Tara Elmore
I started with story.
I studied photojournalism because I was interested in people and the stories we tell about being human.
I’ve always been curious about how people make meaning. The traditions we inherit. The things we believe. The stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we’re supposed to live.
That curiosity has followed me everywhere—from photography and design to health, spirituality, entrepreneurship, and the complicated business of being a person in the world.
Photography was where I first learned how to look. What’s important? What’s missing? What’s there to be felt in the space between? What’s the story underneath it all?
I still ask those questions.
I’ve spent my career looking, building, and making things happen.
I worked at ELLE Decor and Architectural Digest, moved into creative leadership at One Kings Lane, and eventually built my own production business. Nearly six years ago, I co-founded Complex Creatures.
Different work. Different problems. Same instinct: see the whole thing. Understand the people. Find the way forward. I’m very good at that. I’m very good at people, too. And somewhere along the way, I became increasingly interested in a different question:
What happens when we stop trying so hard to be who we’re supposed to be?
That’s the work I’m interested in now. Not because I have a formula.
I don’t.
I pay attention. I ask good questions. I see things. I usually find a way.
And honestly, I fucking love it.