Over the past decade I’ve photographed Google’s invisible architecture — the places and people that keep the digital world running. From data centers in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Atlanta to solar farms in Manchester and Denmark, wind power in Oklahoma and the North Sea, and geothermal plants in the Nevada desert. I’ve seen how Google’s ideas take physical form — in…
blog archive - Alastair Philip Wiper
Industrial and architectural photography. Based in Copenhagen, operating worldwide.
Latest posts
Hospital
Soft pink flesh against cold hard metal — a dialogue between fragility and force that plays out every day in the halls of Basel University Hospital. Here, brain surgery and radiotherapy unfold alongside the quiet work of pathologists examining cells finer than dust, while beneath it all run kilometres of tunnels, carrying the hidden lifeblood of the building …
STATUS Exhibition
A presentation of works by Alastair Philip Wiper, 12-14 June 2025 | Store Kongensgade 88, 1265 Copenhagen K
They're Dying to Get in Here
Of all the things that happen every day, this is one of the most invisible. Not because it's rare — a funeral home like this one processes bodies the way other businesses process paperwork, steadily, reliably, without fuss. Not because it's secret.
Inside Nike, Oregon USA
Nike invited me to photograph their archives, manufacturing and R&D facilities - and loads of other places photographers have never been - for a new exhibition and book about 50 years of Nike. It was an absolute treat …
Eternal Lifeline?
For $200,000 you can have your body cryogenically preserved after death. The question is: To what end?
Nevada Nuclear Weapon Test Site, USA
The Nevada National Security Site, 105 km northwest of Las Vegas, was established in 1951 to test nuclear devices. Covering approximately 3,500 km2 of desert and mountainous terrain, atomic testing at the site began in 1951. Over the subsequent four decades, over 1,000 nuclear explosions were detonated at the site …
The Underground House, Las Vegas
This is a nuclear fallout shelter like no other. Built by eccentric millionaire Jerry Henderson in 1978, this 1,400 m2 underground house comes complete with artificial trees, faux rocks and lighting to simulate different times of day …
The Secret City: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee was born in 1943 as a top-secret part of the Manhattan Project, tasked with refining radioactive material for atomic bombs. A town was built in record time and became known as "The Secret City" because only those living there knew it existed …
Project Greek Island: The Greenbrier Nuclear Bunker, USA
In the 1960s, a top-secret nuclear bunker was built underneath the luxurious Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia to house all 535 members of Congress in the event of a nuclear attack …
Titan II Nuclear Missile, Arizona, USA
The Titan II nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile carried the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States. At 9 megatons, it was about 600 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Between 1963 and 1987, 54 missiles were on 24-hour alert, 365 days per year, spread through Arizona, Arkansas and Kansas …
Pleasure Points
“We don’t recommend oral sex. There are gears in there. I mean you can mess things up, you can mess yourself up. She’s got the mouth and everything moves, but we don’t recommend it. It’ll kind of ruin the whole thing.”
Using the World’s Largest Laser to Test Nuclear Weapons
“It's like a car that you've parked out in your garage for 30 years, and it's your rescue vehicle, but you can't test it until you actually need it” explains Bruno. He is telling me what the largest laser in the world is used for.
Embassy of Denmark, London
I was commissioned to photograph the buildings of the Danish Embassy in London, designed by Arne Jacobsen in the late 70s, for this wonderful new book published by The Danish Architectural Press and designed by Studio Atlant. Click here to find out more and get your copy …
The Danish National Archive, Copenhagen
Landsarkivet, the National Archives for Zealand, was established in Copenhagen in 1893 on Nuuks Plads in Nørrebro in the north of the city. Ghostly and empty for the past decade, the buildings occupy a silent space in the vibrant neighbourhood …
Inside Big Ben, London
Big Ben has just finished a massive renovation, and I was invited inside to photograph behind the clock face …
Candy Crush 10th Anniversary Campaign
I shot this fun campaign to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Candy Crush. The idea is based on the Tetris effect - when people play a computer game way too much, they begin to see real life situations that look like moves from the game. If you’ve played Candy Crush you should be able to spot the moves in these every day situations …
Unintended Beauty at Kvadrat
The Unintended Beauty exhibition is showing at Kvadrat’s showroom in Copenhagen 25th November 2021 …
Unintended Beauty Exhibition Captions
Knitted textile being cut at Innofa textile mill, Kvadrat Febrik, Netherlands, 2019 Legend has it that in the seventeenth century Tilburg’s citizens were famous for saving their urine in jars and then using it to wash wool (it contains ammonia, an important chemical in processing wool). They filled baths with a mixture of water and urine, heated the mixture to 50o Celsius, and washed the wool in…
The Last Professional Darkroom in Denmark
“If you want to take a real photo, you have to shoot analogue. And if you want to hear real music, then you have to hear it on vinyl. That’s the way it is.” …