William Coupon

William Coupon was born in 1952 in New York, but moved to Washington D.C. and later to San Francisco. He is currently based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He began to photograph in 1978 at Studio 54, then moving downtown to the punk scene at the Mudd Club, documenting its new wave participants. Commercial work soon followed for a variety of international magazines, record companies and advertising agencies. He continued to shoot portraits, often of various sub-cultures and indigenous peoples in the 1980s and early 1990s, including death row inmates at Florida State Prison, Australian Aboriginals, Moroccan Berbers, New Guinea tribesmen, traditional Dutch, among others. These 30 particular series comprise his Social Studies, an ongoing and ever expanding project. His current work embraces the digital medium, in places like Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, and in his native United States.