PROFILE: Victoria Cooper

Victoria Cooper has worked in many vocations in which she always found a role for her to excercise her photographic skills. In 1993 she completed Associate Diploma of Arts, Photography studies at the Queensland College of Art and was awarded the AIPP QCA Graduating Student of the Year.

During the last nine years she has been involved in personal imaging projects concentrating on alternative imaging and production techniques. Of particular note is her use of the most ancient of camera devices ~ the pinhole camera. She has achieved international acclaim for this work and in 1998 was exhibited in "The World Through a Pinhole" in Wellington New Zealand alongside the work of thirteen other masters of this unique process. In 2000 a porfolio of her images were published in the Pinhole Resource Journal.

Victoria Cooper's work is included in collections including the Logan City Regional Art Gallery, the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, Winton Regional Art Gallery and the Hirakata City Council, Hirakata, Japan. Cooper is also known for her work with alternative processes and presently has a Cyantype image promoted through the Fotospeed company in advertisments, posters and web home pages.

In 1999 Victoria Cooper achieved Master of Photography membership level of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography and her portarait and landscape work has won many awards, including Gold, over the last eight years at the AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards. Since 1992 Victoria has been involved with teaching adult photography hobby programmes on a casual basis.

From 1995 to present she has been employed by SQIT Toowoomba to teach casually and part-time in their Cetificate of Arts and Diploma of Photography programmes. She also conducts programs relating to the specialist fields that she has mastered.

In 1999 Cooper completed an 18 month RADF supported commission at Myall Park Botanic Gardens south of Roma. The resulting exhibition "A Natural Encounter" has been exhibited at Myall Park and Toowoomba Regional Art Galleries. The exhibition and pinhole photographs have received acclaim and have been published nationally and internationally.