Page 122 - Monocle Quarterly Journal Vol 1 Issue 1 Q4

ON ED COOPER
In each issue of the Monocle Quarterly Journal we intend featuring the work of a graphic artist, illustrator, or photographer. e idea is to provide a counterpoint to the sober material we are presenting in copy, and perhaps to provoke association in readers between the images and the text.
For this rst issue we feature the work of climber and photographer Ed Cooper. Ed Cooper was born in Syracuse, New York, but soon became enamoured with the Rocky Mountains and what he calls the Western Landscape.
He started mountaineering and climbing at an early age, and became a self-confessed “mountain bum”, in spite of rst working for the forestry service in Oregon, and then graduating as a metallurgical engineer.
In the early 1960s, he completed technically di cult and challenging ascents, including the Grand Wall of the Stawamus Chief in British Columbia, as well as the 3 000 foot vertical face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.
For a time he worked as a stockbroker, but resigned in 1967 to experience “the summer of love” – by his own admission. For a twelve year period he and his wife ran a postcard production business in Napa Valley, but closed shop owing to what he terms “philistine shop owners”.
His work since has been photography, in spite of never having received formal training in the eld. In our opinion there is something immutable and timeless about his shots. ey exude the sense of a better Age, a sense of innocence, and of unencumbered beauty.
His images are to be found on pages 12, 24, 28, 34, 44, 66, 87, 95, 102, 104, 111, 116.
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