Information
Ripley creates artworks using the highest resolution medium-format cameras currently available in combination with extensive work in post-production. This process gives him the foundation upon which to produce work of extremely fine detail, clarity and scale, which would be impossible to achieve by any other means.
Working at magnifications of over one-thousand percent, every element of the picture is crafted to the width of a single pixel, something unachievable with the human eye or by using traditional painting or drawing techniques, the resulting level of detail is remarkable.
When composing a portrait Ripley photographs each element separately in order to satisfy a number of technical and artistic objectives. This includes the main subject, skies, landscapes, cityscapes, abstract surfaces and architectural features.
Constructing the picture is more complex than it may at first appear; scenes are often composed from multiple photographs and may comprise of panoramas many pictures wide and many layers deep, with shifts of focus throughout the image. This time-intensive process means that every element of the picture is rendered sharp and in-focus by eliminating 99% of the optical depth-of-field artefacts normally associated with traditional photography.
Ripley assembles every piece of the image with meticulous attention to detail using retouching and drawing techniques developed over twenty years (see; history) this process can take many weeks or months to complete.