Terri Cappucci
Terri Cappucci is a Documentary Photographer and Photo Preservationist located in western Massachusetts, specializing in alternative photography practices, including glass plate, tintype and hand made photographs. She began her career as photojournalist and spent more than 15-years shooting freelance for the Boston Globe, Boston Globe Magazine and New York Times. Terri spent twenty-years photographing in the Kwa Zulu Natal, a coastal South African province, producing a photographic study on social and political changes in the country between 1994-2014. Her exhibit titled “South Africa in Black and White" received an honorable reception as it was on exhibition in Doric Hall at the Massachusetts State House, in Boston. She received her BA in Photojournalism and MFA in Photography from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has been based in western Massachusetts throughout her career.
As an artist, Terri has taken her photographic experience and merged her expressive and intentional compositions, to create prints using historical photographic processes. She is committed to utilizing one of the many printing techniques, to match what she feels the image is commanding. She spends much of her time exploring the depth of the Gumoil Process; an uncommon practice that combines historical and contemporary handmade printing methods. Other processes she works with include bromoil, emulsion transfer and lift, wet plate photography (glass plate and tintype) and giclee film transfer.
Terri has continued her professional development with specialized training through the George Eastman Museum and the Northeast Document Conservation Center, focused on historical photo processes and photographic preservation. Her knowledge and expertise have created opportunities working with photograph collections, preservation, digitization, restoration and archiving. She is currently working on a recently acquired glass plate photo collection with over 4000 individual images, most dating between 1880’s-1920’s. Her hands-on personal experience has given her a unique understanding for providing the critical steps and proper materials and methods for restoration, preserving and building permanent photographic archives.
A quote from Terri as an Artist:
“While digital photography is an active part of my portfolio, my preference has always been working with film and with antiquarian processes. There is something beautiful that happens in a darkroom when I watch the image come to life in front of me. In a world where people don’t print photographs as often, I need that tactile experience to stay in touch with my own artistic process. When I work in wet plate, bromoil, or gumoil, I catch myself in a delicate, yet graceful dance, between the camera and the positive image that is emerging in my hand. These are the experiences that inspire and grow my vision.”