Rapid City, MI – Prominently featured in The Inner Circle, Alexander Kippe is acknowledged as a Pinnacle Professional Member Inner Circle of Excellence for his contributions to Fine Art Photography and Gallery Leadership.
Mr. Kippe serves as Founder and Artist at Alexander Kippe Fine Art Photography and as Founder of Torch Lake Gallery in Bay Harbor, Michigan. Over more than 15 years, he has cultivated a reputation for technical mastery and artistic vision in fine art photography, establishing Torch Lake Gallery as his primary exhibition venue and a home for original works displayed throughout the local area.
Mr. Kippe’s practice spans fine art photography, advanced photo editing, multi-venue gallery presentation, and both telephoto and mission-driven imagery. His expertise also includes drone aerial panoramas, rigorous color management, and print accuracy—capabilities that have earned recognition from peers and industry leaders and underpin his success with commissions and gallery sales.
Committed to meticulous, end-to-end control of the creative process, Mr. Kippe manages production entirely in-house. His Bay Harbor workspace is equipped with four computers, multiple printers and cameras, six lenses, and a color-calibrated monitor. He executes a complex workflow that begins with sublimation printing on paper and proceeds to heat-pressing images onto aluminum panels using an industrial press that weighs as much as a small sports car and draws about 100 amps of power. With a UV printer for alternative substrates and a professional framing machine that enables him to cut and join custom frames, he delivers fully finished works from concept through final display.
His portfolio reflects two complementary sources of inspiration: carefully planned photographic missions and spontaneous long-telephoto explorations that reveal rare moments often invisible to others. An early commercial success—a nighttime underwater photograph of a basket star captured during a scuba dive in Florida—continues to anchor his body of work, while ongoing commissions and gallery exhibitions broaden his reach.
Press features include a four-page Golden Coast Connoisseur spread covering Moda Miami and highlighting the Born Thunder collection of high-speed catamaran imagery, a featured-artist profile in Reside Magazine, and a Great Lakes By Design golf edition showcasing an expansive drone aerial panoramic photograph. His standing in the field is further reflected in recognition by Marquis Who’s Who Top Artists.
Education and credentialing have been integral to Mr. Kippe’s development. He pursued summer coursework in genes and genomics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and science studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, followed by coursework in logic at Washington University in St. Louis and additional classes at several other colleges. After two years of college study, he committed fully to professional photography, building on high-school experience as a senior-year yearbook photographer who covered sports and activities daily. He earned the Certified Professional Photographer designation from the Professional Photographers of America in 2023, a credential achieved through an intensive eight-section examination and a rigorous practical exam assessing consistent light output under changing camera settings.
Mr. Kippe is active in the Professional Photographers of America and the Professional Photographers of Michigan. His civic engagement includes volunteer photography for Crooked Tree Arts Center’s annual plein air competition in Bay Harbor, annual donations of original works for the center’s Dart for Art fundraiser, and gallery fundraising dinners hosted in collaboration with NOMAD, the restaurant below Torch Lake Gallery, where guests selected original artwork while raising substantial contributions for local causes. Guided by a passion to reveal what is ordinarily unseen, he looks ahead to expanding his fieldwork—including plans to acquire a helicopter to access remote regions across America—and to advancing his gallery program and custom commissions through innovation, education, and service.
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