Samuel Cooper, Aka “Scoop,” fell in love with photography about the 10th time he did a 14er,
and his images did not line up to the landscape he saw. Scoop needed to figure out why things
like Yampa Sandwich Company’s gigantic snowy mountains canvas look amazing and why his
phone’s images just did not. He realized then he wanted to be much more intentional about
capturing the natural beauty around him.
“When I take pictures with people, I really strive to capture the ‘spirit of the memory’ that people
will want to go back and ‘feel’ again if they see the images,” says Scoop.
One of Scoop’s favorite parts of photography is creating the final image for print for someone to
have permanently in their possession. “There are a handful of my prints around the world
hanging up on people’s walls, and it fills me with a strangely amazing, maybe vain sense of
pride knowing that someone is looking at something I looked at and love,” says Scoop. The
most fulfilling part of photography for Scoop is how it has modified the way he sees everything.
“I now can become completely lost and fascinated by things as simple as how the light is
playing off of a fallen stump and a few flowers, and I don’t think I would ask for any of the time
back that I’ve lost staring at simple things to create a photo.”
Scoop feels he needs to suffer to get the shot. He enjoys dragging his heavy equipment real far
into the mountains, hopefully in the snow, cold, and wind to find his element. “All I’m trying to do,
from an intentional artist point of view, is to convey that sort of nostalgia you could feel with an
image you remember simultaneously both vividly and in a way that’s hard to recall like it’s sitting
at the corner of your vision,” says Scoop. “So I take a lot of pictures of pretty basic stuff.
Hopefully, the images I make inspire someone, somewhere, if even if it’s just one person to think
to themselves, ‘Wow, that reminds me of when I was little, I used to stare out of the car window
imagining being an old-time train’ or something cute like that.”
Scoop has always had a fascination with light. As a young child, he would play with a
magnifying glass for hours, trying to figure out ‘camera obscura’ before he even knew the
concept. “At that time when my family would take vacations or road trips, we would buy a
handful of disposable cameras, and after the trips, we would drop the film off at Walgreens to
get developed. I remember being absolutely confused that we could see the pictures again
saved on a piece of film and printed photographic paper. I couldn’t understand how that worked
back then, but it certainly always sat in the back of my child brain tickling my curiosity.”
To Scoop, photography is a chance to practice being mindful and intentional. He did not have
strong mentors growing up, but life provided time to realize how mindfulness can go a long way.
When he first started with a nice digital camera, he felt overwhelmed with materialism and that
sense of photographer’s FOMO. He just overshot everything and never slowed down to
appreciate it.
“My day job doesn’t leave me a lot of time, but taking pictures is too fun, so I just smash it in
when I have time. Probably my best habit is that I bring a camera basically everywhere I go,
including my commute to work,” says Scoop. “I have no shame in being that weirdo pulled off on
the side of the road standing on top of my car taking pictures of a grassy field.”
Scoop loves the results from 120 filter, with his favorites being Fuji 400H Pro (now
discontinued) and Kodak Tmax400 B&W. “I’m just mind blown by the colors in the Fuji and the
tones on Tmax. I really love shooting on a camera I have a sentimental attachment to. My
grandpa’s old Kodak, which he used in the ’60s when he was in Antarctica in the Navy, is really
fun to use. My dad bought me a Canon EOS630 film camera (phenomenal for film beginners)
for my birthday back in 2015, and that thing’s meter kicks butt, and it means a lot to me to use a
gift to make art” says Scoop. “Perhaps my favorite to shoot, though, is my Texas Leica, Fujica
GL690. It’s an old, enormous beat-up hunk of metal. Still, after having repaired a bunch of stuff
on it myself (such as light leaks and the focusing mirror falling out), I feel quite the attachment to
it, and the experience framing a medium format rangefinder, and manually metering is just
dope.”
Scoop’s advice to young photographers or someone just starting out,
● Try to avoid buying new equipment that doesn’t really add too much variability in the final
images you make, but instead, make sure you’re always trying to bring the camera out.
● Stop yourself early from overshooting out of fear of “missing the good shot.”
● Apply an artificial limit to yourself and be super intentional about the ones you do take
home.
● Try to organize your photos the same day you take them, rate them, cull them, and don’t
regret getting rid of the ones you don’t think are good.
● Share them, don’t sit on photos, and never share with others. You gotta get them out
there!
● Don’t be afraid of experimenting with new technical bits; it’s 2021, and being a geeky
dork is now sexy (haha, at least I think so).
● For film, don’t be scared! Dive in!
● You don’t have to develop yourself right away; there are tons of labs out there that do a
fantastic job. Honestly, I love the surprise when I get my lab scans sent back to me. It’s
better than Christmas morning, and I always stop what I’m doing immediately to check
‘em out.
● Get a camera with a “through-the-lens” (TTL) meter, especially a matrix or weighted
meter. You won’t have to struggle too much with getting the exposures right, and that
way, you can ease into the completely analog style of shooting. And that’s when it gets
fun and immersive.
See Scoop’s work via Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/photoscoops/
And on his site: h
Samuel Cooper, Aka “Scoop,” fell in love with photography about the 10th time he did a 14er,
and his images did not line up to the landscape he saw. Scoop needed to figure out why things
like Yampa Sandwich Company’s gigantic snowy mountains canvas look amazing and why his
phone’s images just did not. He realized then he wanted to be much more intentional about
capturing the natural beauty around him.
“When I take pictures with people, I really strive to capture the ‘spirit of the memory’ that people
will want to go back and ‘feel’ again if they see the images,” says Scoop.
One of Scoop’s favorite parts of photography is creating the final image for print for someone to
have permanently in their possession. “There are a handful of my prints around the world
hanging up on people’s walls, and it fills me with a strangely amazing, maybe vain sense of
pride knowing that someone is looking at something I looked at and love,” says Scoop. The
most fulfilling part of photography for Scoop is how it has modified the way he sees everything.
“I now can become completely lost and fascinated by things as simple as how the light is
playing off of a fallen stump and a few flowers, and I don’t think I would ask for any of the time
back that I’ve lost staring at simple things to create a photo.”
Scoop feels he needs to suffer to get the shot. He enjoys dragging his heavy equipment real far
into the mountains, hopefully in the snow, cold, and wind to find his element. “All I’m trying to do,
from an intentional artist point of view, is to convey that sort of nostalgia you could feel with an
image you remember simultaneously both vividly and in a way that’s hard to recall like it’s sitting
at the corner of your vision,” says Scoop. “So I take a lot of pictures of pretty basic stuff.
Hopefully, the images I make inspire someone, somewhere, if even if it’s just one person to think
to themselves, ‘Wow, that reminds me of when I was little, I used to stare out of the car window
imagining being an old-time train’ or something cute like that.”
Scoop has always had a fascination with light. As a young child, he would play with a
magnifying glass for hours, trying to figure out ‘camera obscura’ before he even knew the
concept. “At that time when my family would take vacations or road trips, we would buy a
handful of disposable cameras, and after the trips, we would drop the film off at Walgreens to
get developed. I remember being absolutely confused that we could see the pictures again
saved on a piece of film and printed photographic paper. I couldn’t understand how that worked
back then, but it certainly always sat in the back of my child brain tickling my curiosity.”
To Scoop, photography is a chance to practice being mindful and intentional. He did not have
strong mentors growing up, but life provided time to realize how mindfulness can go a long way.
When he first started with a nice digital camera, he felt overwhelmed with materialism and that
sense of photographer’s FOMO. He just overshot everything and never slowed down to
appreciate it.
“My day job doesn’t leave me a lot of time, but taking pictures is too fun, so I just smash it in
when I have time. Probably my best habit is that I bring a camera basically everywhere I go,
including my commute to work,” says Scoop. “I have no shame in being that weirdo pulled off on
the side of the road standing on top of my car taking pictures of a grassy field.”
Scoop loves the results from 120 filter, with his favorites being Fuji 400H Pro (now
discontinued) and Kodak Tmax400 B&W. “I’m just mind blown by the colors in the Fuji and the
tones on Tmax. I really love shooting on a camera I have a sentimental attachment to. My
grandpa’s old Kodak, which he used in the ’60s when he was in Antarctica in the Navy, is really
fun to use. My dad bought me a Canon EOS630 film camera (phenomenal for film beginners)
for my birthday back in 2015, and that thing’s meter kicks butt, and it means a lot to me to use a
gift to make art” says Scoop. “Perhaps my favorite to shoot, though, is my Texas Leica, Fujica
GL690. It’s an old, enormous beat-up hunk of metal. Still, after having repaired a bunch of stuff
on it myself (such as light leaks and the focusing mirror falling out), I feel quite the attachment to
it, and the experience framing a medium format rangefinder, and manually metering is just
dope.”
Scoop’s advice to young photographers or someone just starting out,
● Try to avoid buying new equipment that doesn’t really add too much variability in the final
images you make, but instead, make sure you’re always trying to bring the camera out.
● Stop yourself early from overshooting out of fear of “missing the good shot.”
● Apply an artificial limit to yourself and be super intentional about the ones you do take
home.
● Try to organize your photos the same day you take them, rate them, cull them, and don’t
regret getting rid of the ones you don’t think are good.
● Share them, don’t sit on photos, and never share with others. You gotta get them out
there!
● Don’t be afraid of experimenting with new technical bits; it’s 2021, and being a geeky
dork is now sexy (haha, at least I think so).
● For film, don’t be scared! Dive in!
● You don’t have to develop yourself right away; there are tons of labs out there that do a
fantastic job. Honestly, I love the surprise when I get my lab scans sent back to me. It’s
better than Christmas morning, and I always stop what I’m doing immediately to check
‘em out.
● Get a camera with a “through-the-lens” (TTL) meter, especially a matrix or weighted
meter. You won’t have to struggle too much with getting the exposures right, and that
way, you can ease into the completely analog style of shooting. And that’s when it gets
fun and immersive.
See Scoop’s work via Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/photoscoops/
And on his site: https://www.photoscoops.com/portfolio
ttps://www.photoscoops.com/portfolio
