Biography

I have been taking pictures ever since I could afford a roll of 110 film, around 1972 or so, I have probably taken more photos than anyone really should. 

I was an artist in my youth but gravitated towards photography as I grew older, never going anywhere without my camera. Since I purchased my first digital camera in 1998 I have taken over two million digital photos, crazy I know.

In 1998 I became much more serious about the more technical aspects of photography, this was when I bought my first digital camera with a whopping .5 Meg file size. My first DSLR was a Nikon D50. At this time I was living off the grid in the middle of a forest and my primary focus in photography was landscapes, wild flowers and wildlife. I spent many hours crawling around on hands and knees shooting tiny little wildflowers in the golden hour, you can see these early photos on my nature website and blog http://whiterockstradingpost.wordpress.com/

I literally wore out my Nikon D50 in less than a year and replaced it with my trusty Nikon D90, followed by a D7000, and finally a Nikon D610 as my primary camera. 

One day on a whim I decided to photograph a concert. It was like true epiphany, I cannot fully explain the feeling of being in a photo pit and taking photographs of live music. Being a musician myself and having a deep affinity for music I found that shooting live music was a natural fit. After just that one show and I was hooked, but I was lacking a fast low light lens required for concert photography. A few months later I made the crucial next step and bought the best concert lens in the world, the Nikkor f2.8 70-20 and a couple fast prime lens. And finally a year later I purchased a great fast wide angle lens, the Nikkor f2.8 17-55 wide angle lens. 

The rest, as they say is history. As of late I've been also using my DJI  Phantom 4 drone as a flying tripod to get a whole new perspective on this amazing blue orb we live on. In 2018 I retired from the software business and began travelling the US and Canada in a 4x4 sprinter van with my wife, determined to visit every national monument and or beautiful place we could find, see the map below with red dots showing the places we've been so far.

Thanks for stopping by.

Lewis Cooper 


email:  lewisccooper1@gmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/vangonow/top/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GonzoshotsConcertPhotos/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LewisCCooper/





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