Meet Kathryn Cooper | Photographer, Professor, and Explorer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kathryn Cooper and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kathryn, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I wanted to create a career for myself that allowed me to travel and work with a variety of brands, people, and situations. I considered careers in music, food, writing, marketing, innovation, and photography, and actually worked in all of those fields before coming to the conclusion that I could combine several of those skill sets into the kind of multi-faceted career I have now.

I’m a full-time photographer, adjunct professor, and innovation strategist–and I travel worldwide during my time off. Within months of working a 9-5, I knew the routine of a standard desk job wasn’t for me. Because so much of my work is creatively driven, travel has a huge influence in my work, both indirectly and directly. Therefore, I created a career that would require and/or allow me to travel for several months of the year, allowing me to work on personal photography projects, try new foods, understand new cultures, and more.

My experiences traveling to over 55 countries on 6 continents (all but Antarctica!) help me bring fresh ideas to my work, so that as a freelance creative, I’m constantly evolving.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m most proud of having a creative, varied career that I have control over. If I want to go jump on a plane and stay in Malaysia for a month, I can. If I want to use different parts of my brain, I can. And if I want to create beautiful art or positively influence my students, I will.

What sets me apart is that I have created a multi-track career, where I can explore, create, capture, and teach all together. I use my photojournalism when teaching, my travel experiences when innovating, and my innovative ideas when photographing.

With photography, my experiences have ranged from being the official photographer for the NYC Times Square NYE Ball Drop, to photographing refugees in Nepal, to working for Food Network and Cooking Channel, to capturing images for nonprofit organizations all over the world. With my innovation work, I get to brainstorm new ideas for products and services around the world. And as a professor at Pepperdine University, I teach global experiences and innovative thinking with an entrepreneurial mindset.

It hasn’t been easy to forge my own career out of seemingly disparate paths, but it has been fun. I love the flexibility and unpredictability. Sometimes I might be asked to get on a plane and capture an event 24 hours later, whereas some weeks I might spend photographing a nonprofit or wedding in a rainforest in Central America, followed by time off exploring an island and SCUBA diving.

Predictability and routine kill my creativity, so creating my own schedule and career definitely suits me. And through it all, I still adore photography–which is pretty incredible, since so many people who turn their joys into their careers lose interest in what they once loved. Not everyone is cut out for the freelance life, but I definitely thrive on it.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Food is such a huge part of my life since my photography career started at the Food Network! So a lot of my time spent showing people around would center around street-style food and the outdoors.

I’d spend a lot of time around the San Gabriel Valley, eating Vietnamese, Laotian, Malaysian, and other Asian cuisines. Then, we’d head to Koreatown for some of the most amazing Korean desserts–like flavored snow ice with mochi and condensed milk, or taro-sago dessert soup.

A trip out to Joshua Tree National Park for a few nights of camping and hiking would be required, followed by stops at quirky SoCal stops on the way back to LA. We’d then head to Artesia for some incredible fusion Indian stops. While others like to see the touristy sections of LA, I tend to avoid them, and give people a more local taste of the area–and seeing the many unique homes and palm-tree-lined streets is a perfect way to experience that. Any afternoon drive is only complete with a magnificent sunset on the beach, and some tacos on the way.

Driving up and down the coast is a must for anyone who hasn’t experienced SoCal, so I’d share several locations from Dana Point all the way up to the rocky cliffs of Malibu–and then we’d head to a comedy show at UCB.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My shoutouts would go to quite a few good friends of mine who loved my work and pushed me to go outside my comfort zone. Whether it was urging me to apply to something I didn’t feel I quite qualified for (by the way, almost no one ever has ALL of the qualifications for a job, so just go for it!), or trying out a different style or technique in my photography, it was having others who sometimes trusted my skills more than I did that helped me move forward in my work.

Website: www.KathrynCooperPhotography.com (primary) and www.KathrynCooperWeddings.com

Instagram: Instagram.com/KathrynCooperPhotography and Instagram.com/KathrynCooperWeddings

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathryn-cooper-bb4b631a/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntiTourist

Facebook: Facebook.com/KathrynCooperPhotography