Born in Evansville, IN, Elliott has been devoted to photography since childhood. He graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1970, and has lived in New Mexico since 1971. He has studied with Ansel Adams, William Clift, and Laura Gilpin.
Elliott has been photographer for over 30 years and his work has been sold and distributed internationally. His collections can be found at the Denver Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, and many other fine museums across the country. American Photographer, Popular Photography, and Rolling Stone are just a few who have published his work.

"McDowell is a digital painter, surgical splicer of non-sequiturs. He collects [photographic] bits by the thousands, and like a painter, chooses and arranges them like colors from a palette...plying his enchantments like an alchemist."

- Eugenia Parry
(distinguished photography critic and author)