In the Swirl of Swope
It seems that lens woman Linda Swope has photographed it all: Brides perched on buckrail fences before a Teton backdrop. Professional basketball players tussling for the ball in San Antonio. Texas rodeo cowboys and cowgirls, college fraternity and sorority parties, meandering Teton Valley creeks, migrating sandhill cranes, and rocking Music on Main concerts.
Linda says she has always loved people and nature, and photographing anything that moves. So it’s no surprise she was drawn to the Tetons.
Today, Linda is retired after decades as a portrait photographer in Jackson, Wyoming, where she frequently shot weddings. But she uses the term “retired” rather loosely. Her day-to-day is a flurry of creativity, with a lot of her energy focused on fine artwork that involves digitally layering several photographs and adding her own artistic impression to each one. She sells her work around the valley at art shows and the farmers market, and she keeps a dedicated following. Her art hangs in homes on every continent except Antarctica.
When not crafting fine art, Linda is on photojournalism assignments, including capturing events in her beloved Teton Valley for this magazine, as well as volunteering her time to shoot images for numerous local nonprofits.
Growing up in Seguin, Texas, Linda delved into photography at the age of ten when she got her first camera. As the oldest of four kids, she became her family’s photographer, chronicling their life in a small Texas city. She learned quickly. “That was film,” she says, “and film cost money every time you clicked the shutter. You learned fast.”
In college, her budding portrait business found a home in her dorm room at the University of Texas at Austin. The Episcopal church grounds just a few blocks away became her studio, with its large lawn and stately live oak trees, creating a scenic backdrop for outdoor portraits, which were just becoming popular. For $10 a session, her services were in demand to create gifts for boyfriends and Mother’s Day. Sometimes, she would accompany a fellow student home over the weekend to shoot portraits of the whole family. She would also document events like fraternity and sorority parties. “They were moving—parties are moving,” she says.
After graduating with a double major in sociology and psychology—which Linda says is very useful in the portrait photography business—she set up a studio in her hometown. For ten years, she captured images of top-tier athletes as a photographer for the San Antonio Spurs, as well as snapping bull and bronc riders at rodeos and teenage gridiron stars at high school football games. And more.
But eventually, the pull of the mountains called Linda away from Texas. She had learned to ski in Colorado, and the time she’d spent there stayed with her. In 1986, friends of hers shared a slideshow of a recent trip to Grand Teton National Park. Linda couldn’t get the images off her mind. She heard a quote describing someone’s “compass point[ing] north,” and it resonated with her. The following summer, she took a trip up to Jackson Hole, and in 1988 she made her move.
As is the case with so many long-time residents, she initially told her family she’d only stay for a year. But that year turned into decades. She bought a lot on Snow King Mountain in Jackson and built a cabin. Now, in 2025, she has spent more than half of her years in the Tetons.
“There’s something so spiritual about the mountains,” Linda says. “If you ask what I love about the Tetons, it is being one with the universe. I find nature’s beauty everywhere, but the mountains call my name.”
The Tetons were a perfect studio for Linda, and she found herself very busy shooting weddings and portraits in and around the national parks. Jumping over sagebrush and climbing fences to get the perfect shot became routine parts of her days. She loved being in nature, and always made time to photograph the natural world, whether that was bison or mountains or owlets. “Portraits were my bread and butter, but nature is my soul food,” she says.
After a long career in portrait and wedding photography in Jackson, Linda decided to move to Teton Valley in 2016. Whether you call it a retirement move or simply slowing down, her interpretation remains a swirl of activity.
Linda devotes hours to her distinctive fine-art technique. Each incorporates at least three photographs, using what she calls “pixel magic” to create digital art. Elements of nature shine, and her love of texture is evident. One piece incorporated horses galloping amidst details of chopped wood in the background obscuring a hidden stream. Another features sandhill cranes soaring in front of a full moon in a snowy scene dotted with river rocks. The interwoven images create something new, nonpareil, and visually captivating.
During the summer of 2024, Linda’s art was displayed in the Victor City Hall Gallery as a one-woman show. She has been recognized as the Best Photographer of Teton Valley in the Teton Valley News’ annual “best of the valley” contest for the past four years.
Linda is also a volunteer extraordinaire, lending her skills to local nonprofits, capturing everything from the Tin Cup Challenge celebration and Music on Main concerts to a variety of projects for the Teton Regional Land Trust. Linda’s unique experience in the field has led her to teach photography workshops for the annual sandhill crane festival. She participates in local nonprofit activities like the Christmas bird count and cookie exchanges for Seniors West of the Tetons. She loves to be involved and share her time and expertise.
“Our nonprofit community is so incredibly strong, visible, present, and active—what a great way to meet people and immediately do good,” she says. “It’s a working-class rural community that I’m crazy about. It echoes some of my Texas roots that way. You see the need, but you see the people working so hard to fill the needs.”
Linda is a key part of that important community effort, maybe even more so now in her so-called retirement. Look for her work this summer at select Teton Valley Farmers Market—and keep an eye out for Linda roaming the mountains, too.
