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Going Down ‘Stagg Street’

Ellen Stagg is sexy, smart, and takes very erotic photos of hot naked women. Although she’s shot for countless fashion, lifestyle, and mens magazines (including Complex), it’s her very NSFW* ‘Stagg Street‘ website that has us gawking daily. She’s amassed an orgy of images depicting some very racy depictions of porn-hot models and muses. In addition to showing off these sultry vixens, the sizzling 29 year-old shutterbug also blesses the world with lascivious photographs of herself. Although thoroughly distracted, we managed to shoot off a few questions and get Ms. Stagg to open up a little, and divulge about her hopes, fantasies and wishes, including her desire to shoot the Victoria Secret’s catalog, an endeavor we fully support!

*[Ed note: Every link is NSFW so look both ways before crossing the ‘Street.’]


Are you employed anywhere full time or do you mainly freelance?
I have been a freelance photographer for 8 years now, and I love it.

How hard it is to make a living from just doing photography?
It’s a freelance job, all freelance jobs can have their ups and downs. you might have too many jobs one month and then too few the next. I keep myself busy by always shooting personal work and it helps to keep me happy.

Do you shoot digital or are you actually still using film?
I just switched to digital in May. I miss my Hasselblad, but digital is better cause there is less stuff to carry.

Why did you start Stagg Street? Do you know how many people have visited your site since it started?
I started it cause i was shooting some much personal work and i didn’t have home for it. I’m the kind of artist who loves sharing my work. So where is a better place than your own blog? And I have had over 18,000 visitors since May, it’s pretty awesome how many fans I have so far.

How fine is the line between erotic photography and straight up pornography?
The difference for me is that I shoot art, and I’m not getting paid for it. Pornography is defined from www.websters-dictionary-online.org as “Creative activity (writing or pictures or films etc.) of no literary or artistic value other than to stimulate sexual desire”. If fans get off on my work, cool, but I don’t wanna hear about it. I shoot for me more then anyone else. I’m not stingy.

Do you think you have an advantage over male photographers when it comes to shooting women?
Totally!!! Women feel more comfortable around me cause i don’t have alternative motives. I am friends with most if not all of my models.

Are you turned on more by shooting guys or girls?
While I’m shooting, I’m way to busy thinking about if my camera settings are right, my lighting is good and my composition is awesome. but when I’m editing my photos, i think they are all hot and I have the hardest time not posting millions of images. I love shooting women and men equally, as long as they are happy, positive sexy people.

Have you ever fooled around with the subject you were shooting?
Nope, too busy shooting. But, if we are out on the town later, maybe.

Is it hard to not want to engage sexually while taking these extremely erotic photos?
As i said before, thinking too much about the pictures and not sex. I’m a girl, i don’t have sex on my brain 24/7, just 23/6, ha ha ha.

Your male friends seem to be “giving you a hand” with you new project, how willing are they to do that?
I have the best guys friends in the world. some are more willing then others to take it all off. A lot of the time I just tell them I’m not going to put their faces in and they are totally cool.

Your self portraits for Playboy were elegantly sexy. Did they ever get back to you? Would you still pose for Playboy if they asked?
They didn’t hate them, 5 years ago when i shot them they were thinking of putting them on their website, but I wanted to be in mag. but now that i know more about how Playboy works I think I would have to have sex with Hef to get my pic in there, and I’m not interested in having sex with an 80 plus year old man. gross. but if a magazine was interested in paying me well and letting me really do self portraits, I would totally do it.

Is it harder to become an established porn star or photographer?
I think it’s harder as a female photographer, there seems to be many more porn stars then established female photographers. however, photography is a career that can last decades, a porn star can’t be doing it when they are in their 60’s

Are there any celebrities you’d like to take erotic photos of?
There are so many celebs I would like to erotic photos of. It would be awesome to have celebs to just be natural and nude for my camera. My list is too long, but off the top of my head Rihanna, Christian Bale, and M.I.A.

Out of all the photo shoots on the website, which ones do you find the sexiest and why?
I love all the shoots on my site, I edit them cause they are all my favorites. One of my most favorite models to work with is Justine Joli and Jelena Jensen and i loved doing this shoot with them, cause they hadn’t shot in over 4 years and they are awesome girls.

See a sampling of her photographs below and visit Stagg Street for more. To see the commercial side of her success, go over and crash The Stagg Party too.