Photography Atelier

Pip Shepley

Alchemical processes elude human understanding, whether in pursuit of turning base elements into gold or producing an elixir of longevity.  In this body  of landscape photographs, I probe the boundary between theory,  conjecture and happy accidents with my camera obscura in search of unknown transformations.

The camera obscura I designed and built is a (barely) portable wooden box with a very simple glass lens.  It generally eschews modern technology.   I place a photographic print inside the camera obscura box and the lens overlays the image from the outside world onto the print.  The result is reminiscent of a composite or double exposure which melds the elements of the two images.  In a mash-up of old and new, I use a digital camera for the final capture of the image created by the camera obscura.  By varying the print inside the box, I can get dramatically different images of the same scene.

After spending the last decade learning the myriad fine points of digital photography and printing, I find the alchemy of my camera obscura process intoxicating.  Predicting the image is impossible.  Even framing the image is challenging as the camera obscura can only be pointed in the general direction.  The photograph must be created to discover what the camera obscura sees.  Details of a landscape can be accentuated or lost.  Dark and light sometimes struggle for dominance.  Much like the philosopher’s stone was believed to turn mercury into gold, in the resultant image it can be difficult to differentiate the physical from the metaphysical.  Photographing the unseen with my camera obscura is an exploration and an adventure and one that has turned familiar landscapes into a transformation of elements.

Artist Bio

Pip Shepley is a lens-based artist who is fascinated by the interplay of the artistic and technical sides of photography.  Shepley frequently photographs in infrared, his imagination piqued by capturing a subject which the eye cannot perceive.  His work explores the unseeable feeling of a place or object by paring it down to a simpler level.

He has studied art and photography at many venues including Maine Media Workshops + College, New England School of Photography, and MassArt.  He continues to work with photographers John Paul Caponigro and Vincent Versace.

Shepley’s photographs have been in over 50 exhibits, including the Griffin Museum of Photography, A Smith Gallery in Texas, PhotoPlace Gallery in Vermont, Black Box Gallery in Oregon, and RI Center for Photographic Arts.  He is a Board member of the BCA Photo Group in Bedford, MA, where he selects renowned photographers to present to the organization.

His non-linear path includes a degree from Colorado College in French, Spanish and Italian.  Shepley’s career went in a different direction: managing the design and construction of electrical mega-projects, primarily the electrical systems for subways and light rail systems.

Currently he is exploring the capabilities of a camera obscura which he designed and built.  The process merges tremendous digital control with the unpredictability and mystery of analog processes.  It touches his passion for science and creativity.

Shepley resides in Belmont, MA, with his wife, artist Martha Wakefield, and cat.