For Scott Couch, being a photographer is a lifestyle. Despite having a full-time job, the '94 Auburn grad dedicates as much time as he can to his part-hobby part-business venture in outdoor photography.
Growing up in Pine Bluff, Ark., a place he refers to as the "duck capital of the world," Couch spent a lot of his time hunting and fishing outdoors, which later inspired him to pursue nature photography.
During his time at Auburn, Couch studied psychology and political science with the intention to go to graduate school. After studying abroad in Nottingham, England his senior year, he decided to change plans and pursue work elsewhere in Birmingham.
Couch moved back to Auburn in 1998 and began running, mountain biking, hiking and backpacking. At one point, he was running 30-40 miles a week.
"I was a machine," he said.
While going on a run down Gay Street, Couch suddenly went numb from the waist down.
"I talked to a few people, and they told me to eat a banana because of cramps from sweating (too much)," Couch said.
But Couch needed a bit more than a banana. Upon going to another clinic, he found out he ruptured his L4 and L5 discs in his back- a nearly debilitating injury that forced him to have major spinal surgeries and two artificial discs put in. With sadness, he realized he could no longer continue with his active lifestyle.
"After that, it really left my crippled," Couch said. "I couldn't run, I couldn't bike. I couldn't do most of the stuff I was used to doing."
While in recovery at a Birmingham hospital, Couch was trying to figure out what he could do and recalled a defining moment on a solo backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail.
On his journey, he walked around a corner and saw a mother bear with her three cubs up in a tree, who climbed down right in front of him. With haste, he pulled out an ordinary film camera- a camera he brought for the same obligated reasoning any person might take a camera on a trip with them- and snapped a quick picture. Such an experience sparked an epiphany in Couch.
"It hit me, and I was like, I can still camp, I can still travel, do what I like to do," he said. "Rather than backpacking, I can camp in one place. I was an outdoorsman, I kind of transitioned from hunting and fishing to more photography."
At the time of this decision, Couch knew very little about photography. During the next year, he immersed himself in the field and took online classes through the New York Institute of Photography.
Initially, Couch started out simple, traveling to nearby states like Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana to capture photos of ducks, geese, eagles, deer and Labrador retrievers. The hunger for more, however, quickly kicked in and he decided to venture to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina.
"I spend about 50 percent of my time (there)," Couch said. "That's kind of my home base. I know everything and everybody up there. Simply by being there, I get unique pictures. It's like anything you do; you get out what you put into it. I'm willing and able to put in more time than most people."
In recent years, Couch has made an annual trip out to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Park in the fall. While many might consider going to such a beautiful part of the country a vacation, he insists it's not easy work.
"Some people say, 'you're on vacation,' but if you're with me, you wouldn't call it (that). You're up at four in the morning, going to bed late, it's tiring. It's butt-kicking when you go for 12 days nonstop, 16 hours a day."
Such hard work, though, has paid off, Couch said.
"Having done that, I've got the best pictures of my life out there this past year when it comes to bears, owls and some other stuff," he said. "That is by far my favorite place in the world. I hope to move there some day."
Working out in the wild does have its risks. Couch said he hasn't had any life-threatening encounters with animals, but has had a few scary run-ins with bad weather. While camping in a tent underneath a tree, a thunderstorm blew a large branch off the tree and onto his tent, crushing it and barely missing him.
"All in all, I use my best judgment," he said. "Even though I push it, it's not insanely crazy, just a few calculated risks."
While Couch is a hunter, he is also a conservationist and tries to affect his animal subjects as little as he can.
"There's a very fine line when you're photographing animals, like deer or bear," Couch said. "The second that you affect the animals behavior is the second that you've pushed too far."
Juggling his desire to blend in as naturally as possible with the unpredictable behavior of wild animals, Couch said it's often difficult to get a good shot.
"You know how you get to know your dog or your cat?" he said. "You get a general sense of how they're going to act. All the animals I photograph are wild and are scared of people. Even though I've spent thousands of hours with animals, you like to think you know what's going to happen, you don't."
Couch explains being a wildlife photographer requires a unique way of living due to so much time spent traveling.
"I've had to rebase my life on the way that I want to live and travel," he said. "If I chose to travel and do all of this, on the other end when I'm back, my social life is off. I'm happy with spending three weeks in a tent, with no electricity or running water, I love that. But that does set me apart from a lot of people."
The rewards, he insists, are entirely worth it.
"You have to reinvent yourself and what you do to make it," Couch said. "I don't limit myself- anywhere or anything. For me, it's a lifestyle. It's who I am and how I live. You just go with it, good or bad, make the best of it."
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
