Ed Cooper Photography

&Poetry by Deborah P. (Debby) Cooper

ed@edcooper.com

debby@rhymingpoet.com*

*Note: if this email link does not work, use

debby@edcooper.com


WEBSITE UPDATE, FEBRUARY 2008 - NEW BOOK RELEASE

SOUL OF THE HEIGHTS
50 years going to the mountains

Above is the front cover of the book, including the inside flap. It is a hardback, 210 pages, with over 140 photographs. The title is embossed in gold. In describing this book release, I will quote from Falcon Press's website:

Soul of the Heights is the story of a pioneering climber with a passion for, and lifetime dedication to, the majestic mountains of North America. First conquering the awesome faces and peaks-many of them previously unclimbed-then photographing them with an intimate eye, Ed Cooper has maintained this love affair with the mountains for more than fifty years. His unique story evokes the now-legendary early days of mountaineering and includes exclusive first-hand accounts by climbers of that era about many of the first ascents of new routes that have since become top destinations for new generations of climbers. These historic ascents include routes in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State; the "Chief," near Squamish, British Columbia; the Bugaboos, also in B.C.; and El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California. These ascents were all achieved in the 1950s and early 1960s at a time when climbing standards were rising dramatically. Fascinated by the challenge of the heights, Ed Cooper became the first "climbing bum" in the Pacific Northwest, where he rapidly acquired a reputation as one of the most important all-around climbers of his generation. This book provides rare insight into the world of mountaineering and rock climbing during that era, revealing the intensely competitive nature of the sport at a time when so many opportunities were available for carving a place in climbing history as the first to complete a new challenge. The young climber's evolving quest to photograph the essence of the mountains he held in such awe resulted in a series of spectacular portraits of many of the best-known peaks of North America. These images provide the visual drama in Ed Cooper's story, which also contains many historically interesting photos of early climbs, and of such noted mountain personalities as Norman Clyde, Warren Harding, and Galen Rowell.

This book, released in the autumn of 2007, may be purchased through your local store, or online at www.Falcon.com . (The Falcon Guides label has one of the best selections of outdoor books to be found anywhere--check out their site.) Currently, I have aVERY LIMITED number of copies which I can autograph and send to you. Once these copies are gone, they are gone. The retail price is $39.95 US and $49.95 Canada. There is also a numbered, cloth bound with slip-in case, limited edition of 209 copies; this version retails at $100 (US funds). The book's back cover appears further down this page. For further information or to order books from this website, click here.

Seen to the right of me in the center picture is Jim Nelson, owner of Pro Mountain Sports in Seattle. (Check out their ultra light mountain gear). This is on the summit of Mt. Adams, 12,276 feet, in Washington State. In the background is Mt. Rainier, 14,411 feet in altitude. Probably 20 to 30 people visited the summit that day, and I gave my camera to one of them to take the picture of the two of us. The flag and banners were there already and as you can see, it was very windy and on the cold side. I call this photo "Dos Amigos on Mt. Adams". We and another party came up from the north; everybody else came up from the south. It was 50 years earlier to the day that I climbed Pinnacle Peak, a satellite peak of Mt. Rainier which can be spotted with binoculars from this point. The following view from our stock photo library was the original photo appearing on this home page.

Where the accent is on Nature

This view of frost on vine maple leaves (#404621 - as it appeared on the cover of Sierra Magazine) was taken early on a cold clear October morning on the east side of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State in Wenatchee National Forest.

IMAGE ABOVE AND ON FOLLOWING PAGES, EXCEPT WHERE NOTED, ARE COPYRIGHT BY ED COOPER. THESE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND MAY NOT BE USED AS CLIP ART. ANY USE OF THE IMAGES ON THESE PAGES IS A VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT LAWS!

ED COOPER PHOTOGRAPHY
P.O. Box G, El Verano, CA 95433 (U.S.Mail)
3800 Grove St., Sonoma, CA 95476 (Courier - UPS, Fed-X, etc.)
Phone & Fax: (707) 996-1934

ed@edcooper.com

Poetry Chapbooks

All eight chapbooks (scroll down to see the latest) have received excellent reviews. You will find meter, humor, and a lot of rhyme in each of them. (Chortle Blossoms is ALL humor.) Please send check or money order made out to Deborah Cooper, P.O. Box G, El Verano, CA 95433. The price of each chapbook (this includes cardboard-protected shipping) is $10.00; for price breaks on book cost and postage for four or more books, please e-mail Debby at the e-mail address given at the top of this page. You may request signed chapbooks at no extra charge.To review a page of sample poems , click here.To view a second page , click here.

The covers of Chortle Blossoms and Rays of Light both feature Ed's photos (pansies in Shore Acres State Park, OR and trail on Slide Mountain in the Catskills, NY). The cover of Observations of a Dinosaur is the work of Marie Summers. The cover of Venus on the Half Shell features the famous painting by the 15th century Italian artist Sandro Botticelli. The covers of Talking Back, Feline/Canine, and Grandma's Top 40 are the work of CarrieAnn Thunell. The cover photo of Pizza for Breakfast is a joint effort by Debby (who took the original photo) and Ed (who improved it using Photoshop).

Relatively new additions to the website include three new pages--POETRY #2 and MOUNTAINS and MOUNTAINS #2. POETRY #2 contains poems from the more recent chapbooks. The MOUNTAINS and MOUNTAINS #2 pages have beautiful mountain photographic portraits, as well as a few historical photographs.

For the first time in over 35 years, Ed is now offering prints of his photography for sale. The prints are made on a high end pigment-based Epson printer.

These prints are made from digital scans made at from 2400 dpi to 4800 dpi on a high end scanner. The file sizes range up to 300 megabytes and more. The final prints are indistinguishable from traditional wet darkroom prints, and the digital darkroom has provided controls over the image in ways undreamed of in the traditional wet darkroom. Every print will be made by Ed personally, and will be shipped accompanied by a signed Certificate of Authenticity. To order prints from this website, click here.

More on Charlie Bell: Mike Swayne kept a detailed daily journal on all trips he took into the mountains. He wrote in them events that happened during each day while the events were fresh in his mind. That journal is what I was quoting from. I present here Charlie Bell's reply in full (now more than 46 years removed from the event):

Drugs? Pep pills?  WHAT??

This is absolute nonsense. I don't know where Mike got that idea. This was 1961. I had never used any drug and had no idea what a pep pill was. (I may have heard something about benzedrine but I had never actually seen any.) I don't know what Mike saw me eating -- it must have been some sort of candy, I suppose -- but I give you my word (and it's about time somebody took it) that I had no "drugs" on that climb or on any other.

Not, that is, until 1972 when I was leading a group of young (age 14-15) companions on a traverse of the Hermit Range in B.C. Before we left for Canada my brother, an M.D., had given me a prescription for dexedrine to put in our first aid kit. We climbed
Tupper, then bivouacked (I was always a slow climber), then went on to Mt. Rogers. As we were descending I noticed the boys were stumbling (to be honest I was stumbling a bit myself) so -- for the first and only time -- I broke out the dexedrine and gave each member one tablet. The stumbling ceased and we all made our way down to the Hermit Hut without incident (where one of the youngsters said he experienced some mild and rather pleasant delusions before he went to sleep). That is the only time in my climbing career that I ever ingested anything that could be characterized as a "drug."

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