{"id":547,"date":"2020-08-20T15:46:26","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T14:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.dev.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2020-09-24T16:16:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T15:16:02","slug":"biog","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/biog\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Coupar, photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_310\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-310\" style=\"width: 211px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-310 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2020\/08\/Alex-Coupar-2017-211x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"211\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2020\/08\/Alex-Coupar-2017-211x300.jpg 211w, https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2020\/08\/Alex-Coupar-2017.jpg 383w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-310\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alex looks through his collection at UoD Archives, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Born in 1932 in Dundee, Alex Coupar was educated at Dens Road and Morgan Academy. He always wanted to be a photographer and joined DC Thomson after leaving school as a press photographer, eventually specialising in theatre work and\u00a0 magazine features.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a0<span class=\"details\">1953 he served his National Service with the Royal Air Force School of Photography where he was a publicity photographer, returning in 1955 to Dundee and DC Thomson. Apart from taking photographs for news stories, Alex worked closely with the Dundee Repertory Theatre, producing production and publicity photographs. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"details\">Leaving DC Thomson in 1966, Alex set up his own studio. Working freelance with the press, he also built a reputation within advertising, as a portrait photographer and maintained his relationship with Dundee Rep.\u00a0 His studio, <em>Spanphoto<\/em>, became known as one of Scotland&#8217;s premier photographic firms. Alex closed <em>Spanphoto<\/em> in 2000, but he continues to use his camera to record life around him\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_224\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-224\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-224 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2020\/08\/First-pic-published-Stockton-on-Tees-1950s-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2020\/08\/First-pic-published-Stockton-on-Tees-1950s-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/139\/2020\/08\/First-pic-published-Stockton-on-Tees-1950s.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-224\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stockton on Tees, 1950s. Taken when he was 15 years old on holiday, this is the first picture Alex had published after sending it to &#8216;John Bull&#8217; magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Born in 1932 in Dundee, Alex Coupar was educated at Dens Road and Morgan Academy. He always wanted to be a photographer and joined DC Thomson after leaving school as a press photographer, eventually specialising in theatre work and\u00a0 magazine features. In\u00a01953 he served his National Service with the Royal Air Force School of Photography [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-547","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/547\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/coupars-camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}