Felipe Dupouy is an explorer. Since childhood, photography has served both as a method of satisfying his personal curiosity about the world and as a means to sharing his deeply emotional investigations with others. This abiding search for understanding unites the disparate work in his commercial and fine art portfolios. Felipe draws no hard and fast line between the two bodies of work as a commercial project may often be influenced or informed by his fine art practice or vise versa.

Felipe’s talent for creating stunningly affective images, even in difficult situations, has made him highly sought after for a large variety of commercial work. Felipe, a graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, has shot at least fifty feature stories and several striking covers for the Los Angeles Times Magazine and Los Angeles Magazine, plus dozens of features for business periodicals including Forbes, Fortune, Money, and Smart Money magazines. His work that has been featured on popular television programs, including Heroes, The Closer, and Jimmy Kimmel Live, as well as in such films as I Am Legend, Duplicity, and Burlesque. Felipe’s interest in the human story of places has also contributed to his success in creating compelling images for more than twenty corporate clients, from Bank of America and the University of Southern California to NASA, Occidental Petroleum, and the New York Stock Exchange. Students have had the opportunity to learn about Felipe’s methods and develop their own artistic processes in the courses “Environmental Portraiture” and “Photographing Places” which Felipe has designed and taught for the past three years at UCLA Extension.

Felipe, born in Santiago, Chile and now based in Los Angeles, has also put his extensive knowledge of South America to work for his clients, shooting and producing work in Chile’s spectacular locations during opposite seasons and for costs comparable to those incurred in the United States.

Felipe recently completed a ten year personal project titled “Portrait Los Angeles” that began during the mid 1990’s. Exploring the streets of downtown Los Angeles, prior to the massive revitalization efforts that have recently transformed the area. In trying to figure out what drew him to these deserted streets, he recalls, “I realized that people leave something behind when they pass through these places. You touch a handrail on the way down, you sneeze, you kneel to pick up your keys. I felt like these were the things that I was photographing—emotions, tiny moments that people had left behind.”

The landscape of Southern California also calls to Felipe’s sense of adventure. A perfect day, he muses, would include surfing at Malibu, then riding his motorcycle through the coastal canyons, and making music in the evening with friends. These pursuits often find their way into his photographic work, whether he is inspired by the mystery of the semi-abandoned Angeles Crest Highway to Palmdale or the sense of soulfulness that defines the work of great musicians. As Kim Beil wrote in a feature article in Photographer’s Forum magazine, “The visual drama of Dupouy’s images powerfully communicate the wonder, beauty, and mystery that their maker finds hidden in his subjects. His untiring curiosity is driven by an intense desire to communicate something of his own experience to his viewers.” The sense of presence and vibrant personality that Felipe brings to his work is unique even in a world saturated with photography.

Felipe Dupouy’s photographs can be found on permanent collection at The Santa
Barbara County Museum of Art, Occidental Petroleum Headquarters, Jimmy Kimmel Live show, The Roosevelt Hotel and The Rowan Building in Los Angeles.

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