Born and raised in Baltimore, Dave Cooper traded his award-winning graphic design career to pursue photography, film, and video. The confines of an office proved too static. His first high-profile film work was co-directing the niche professional cycling documentary, Road to Roubaix. That launched him toward a career capturing images all over the globe—42 countries and counting.

He has been a contributor to The New York Times, Garden & Gun magazine, USAID, PBS, and many others.

Beginning in 2010, he became known as an international documentary filmmaker and photographer, telling meaningful people-centered stories. He helped pioneer this approach to video storytelling for USAID. He has worked more than a mile beneath the surface of the Earth, inside previously unseen Egyptian tombs, and flying over storm-damaged landscapes.

As a director, Dave believes that every story worth telling can be told through the words and experiences of people, and his production company works toward this goal for every project. As a photographer, he finds incredible power in the simplicity of a still photograph, and its ability to capture emotion, intensity, and meaning.

Cooper works as both a director/filmmaker and photographer, who scales productions to fit the project. He finds keeping crews small allows the most impactful stories to present themselves in the most natural way.