Katherine Liepe-Levinson Makes Nature Dance Through Her Lens

Standing with perfect posture, Katherine Liepe-Levinson scanned her bedroom. “Where, oh where, did I put it?” she mused, her pet cat staring indifferently, perhaps waiting for a pat.

Suddenly, she plucked out her “Caribbean Conservancy” bucket hat from beside her bed, as a look of relief flooded her face. “Got it!” she said, grabbing her Sony NEX. “This is essential. Now we can go. Bye, Marty!” she called out to her husband, who was quietly typing at the kitchen table.

The destination was a modest pond not far from her home/studio in Riverside, an escape from the grind in Queens. “Oh, that’s pretty,” she said, looking out across the water, when a curious head popped out of the mud.

“Wow! C’mere, guy,” she cooed to what she came to find out was a rather large snapping turtle trudging toward her. “Where are your friends?”

She took a few photos before lowering her camera to browse her handiwork.

“Photography, for me, it feels spiritual, light, magical,” she said, flipping through her shots. “It makes me feel like I’m dancing again. It’s the closest I can get.”

Ms. Liepe-Levinson has spent her whole life in the arts, starting as a professional dancer from ages 16 to 24 and continuing with degrees in theater, teaching drama on the high school and college levels, running her own dance company, and finally, working as a photographer.

“I look for the beauty in all the things I like to do,” she said during an earlier interview, sitting in a garden chair inside her bright, sunny studio. “The dancer captures emotions and movement in time with the music, and the photographer captures emotions, light and movement in the moment.”

Her studio is a mini gallery, lined with large photos of moving water—rippling ponds in the Quogue Wildlife Refuge, reflections of fish and turtles in the Peconic Bay and River, and dappled colors seemingly vibrating with energy—with a quick shutter speed and her signature style.

“I love to photograph water,” she said. “I think the times I am most tranquil and energized are when I’m around the ponds, streams and bays. In the Hamptons, everyone thinks of the ocean, but there are so many more subtle beauties as well.”

A graceful and lithe woman appearing much younger than her 62 years, Ms. Liepe-Levinson explained that because ponds are indicators of the ecosystem’s overall health, she enjoys photographing the wildlife in them—wild ducks, geese and the occasional snapping turtle.

“As an avid hiker and nature lover, I’ve been concerned about the ongoing pollution of our waterways in New York State” she said. “So I decided to record the flora and fauna of the Hamptons, and also of the Hudson River around New York City.”

When she started focusing on wildlife in the water with a fast shutter speed, Ms. Liepe-Levinson said she began getting wild, mysterious patterns, light refractions and reflections that were “even more interesting than the wildlife I was attempting to shoot.”

The vibrant colors and patterns she captures are purely natural results—no manipulation, she said—thanks to available light, camera angles, shifting wind patterns on the water and in the foliage, refracted reflections on the water’s surface, and zooming in for close-ups. “I don’t use any filters. You can get tremendous blue color, depending on where the sun is and how you angle your lens,” she said. “None of my work is amped up. I just use the ‘strong contrast’ feature on my camera that makes the colors pop.

“Mother Nature does it better than anyone could do it,” she added.

Ms. Liepe-Levinson, who grew up in Portland, Oregon, credits her parents for her artistic ability; her mother was a well-known landscape painter, and her father, Winfried Liepe, an amateur photographer.

“But as a young girl, all I wanted to do was dance,” she said. “My teachers noticed my ability when I was about 6 years old, and told my parents I should go to dance school.” She took modern dance and ballet in Portland and, though her parents wanted her to attend college, she won a scholarships at age 16 for the Joffrey Ballet Company in Washington and Manhattan, as well as the Boston Ballet.

“Because I had an aunt in Boston, they let me go,” she recalled. “But when I got there, they had only part-time jobs, so I decided to go to Europe, where I had more relatives, and I joined the ballet opera companies, who gave me full-time work.”

By age 18, she was an apprentice with the Zurich Opera Ballet and went on to the Scapino Ballet in Amsterdam, where she toured Europe, dancing in all the major opera houses. But after two years, she saw the Alvin Ailey dancers in Amsterdam and decided she wanted to audition for them. She won a full scholarship to Alvin Ailey Dance School and returned to Manhattan at age 20, where she met her husband.

“That was the best time in my life,” she said. “I loved dancing with Alvin Ailey and living in the city with my husband. We’ve been married 41 years.”

Ms. Liepe-Levinson later formed her own dance company, “Synergy,” until she was forced to stop. “I danced until I was 24, when I had a knee injury, and then I had to rethink my life,” she said. “So I started studying acting, and then got a B.A. from Empire State College in drama at age 30.”

She earned a master’s degree in theater from Hunter College and her doctorate from The Graduate Center CUNY. She taught acting and drama at Colgate University for eight years, as well as at Hunter College and the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. Along the way, she studied at the International School of Photography.

“After 9/11, I formed my own drama therapy company, to tour schools and promote awareness of HIV prevention, anger management and tolerance for diversity,” she said. “Then, I guess you could say, I ‘retired’ into photography, being inspired as I spent more time in nature over the past 10 years in the Hamptons.

“I feel like I’ve been in little ponds at lots of different places,” she added, with a smile.

Katherine Liepe-Levinson’s photography will be on view during the Southampton Artist Association’s Labor Day Show through Sunday, September 13, at the Southampton Cultural Center. An opening reception will be held on Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m. For more information, visit southamptonartists.org.

A solo show of her work, “Earth & Water Series,” will open with a reception on Saturday, September 12, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Vital-A-Tea Shop & Gallery in Riverhead. The exhibition will remain on view through the end of the month. Her photographs are also included in the “August Abstracts” exhibit at 30 West Main Gallery in Riverhead through October 29. For more information, visit katherineliepelevinson.zenfolio.com.