Upon leaving New York, life has become more dynamic and mobile - as has my relationship to photography.
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Current info:
After fourteen years working in media, advertising photography, and personal art projects in New York City, I have taken my work on the road. My wife’s career takes us overseas for years at a time so I am doing my best to adapt my skills to each new set of circumstances. The most recent and consuming of those has been fatherhood. Before that chapter was a two year stretch in Sierra Leone where I worked with public affairs and outreach programs for the U.S. Government. I am always shooting.
Gallery Bio:
Landscape has always been part of life for Kipp Wettstein (b. 1979). Growing up in a U.S. Forest Service compound on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and subsequently moving to the glaciated suburbs of Juneau, Alaska, Wettstein has always been faced with overwhelming landscape. But it wasn’t until he began high-altitude firefighting in the mountains of Oregon and Colorado that his appreciation for landscape evolved into a direct pursuit: to understand the relationship between modern society and our collective ideas of ‘nature.’ During his two-years working in the visuals department of The New Yorker magazine, his questions about landscape began to crystallize. After leaving The New Yorker in 2005, he began work with photographer Robert Polidori documenting the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Polidori’s body of work, titled “After the Flood,” was featured in The New Yorker and as a special exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Wettstein’s experience in New Orleans raised more questions about place, history, expectations, and ultimately our society’s collective literacy in its interpretation of landscape.