Artist's Biography
Chip Hooper's (b. 1962) photographs of the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea capture transient moments when light and water coalesce in transcendent beauty. Hooper felt a kinship with the ocean from a young age; he began making prints at age 12 and constructed a darkroom in the basement of his childhood home. Through his work with a large-format 8x10 inch view camera, he has embraced the patient and meticulous approach that it demands and has achieved a high degree of technical mastery that is exhibited in his flawless and highly detailed prints. His subject matter joins him with a lineage of artists who have been profoundly inspired by the Pacific Ocean, including Ansel Adams and Minor White. Yet Chip Hooper has developed a unique contemporary vision of his own, refining the expressive power of landscape photography through his meditative studies of sea, sky, and light. California’s Pacific is the first installment of a series of photographs that Chip Hooper is making of oceans around the world. New Zealand's South Pacific and Tasman Sea is his most recent publication consisting of works from 2003 to 2005.