Description

Chip Hooper’s fascination with seascapes has taken him as far as New Zealand and Iceland. Working closer to his home in San Francisco, he has photographed over a number of years Garrapata Beach, located south of Carmel. This scenic waterfront is part of a 3,000-acre state park and has a large inventory of sculptural rock formations that became key features in his compelling compositions. One of three large, luminous photographs of the area recently acquired by the museum, Moonlight is dominated by the centrally positioned rock formation with distinctly visible craggy textures. The rendering of this mysterious form becomes eerily surreal, for it is separated from its identifiable and natural habitat by transforming sand, water, and sky into three bands of pure light.