Jess Robin's photostream

I took my first photography class when I was 16, by correspondence. My family lived in Barcelona, Spain as missionaries with Youth With a Mission, 1991-1992 when I was a sophomore in high school. I learned on my Dad's Canon AE-1, fully manual, with one fixed 50mm lense and one telephoto 70-200. Inspired by National Geographic "day in the life" books I saw somewhere, I took a day to travel around Barcelona and shoot all over.

I majored in art in college and took a couple photography courses, getting a chance to spend a lot of time in the dark room. Also in college, I learned web design and started working with bands. Thus began my love for concert and band photography.

Since moving to Nashville in 1999, working in publishing has given me the opportunity to learn from and network with professionals and also have some of my work published. I began researching concert photography specifically and realized I needed to upgrade my camera so that I could use faster lenses. I bought a used Canon on eBay in 2002 for only $450 since most professionals were going digital. I then purchased lenses that the book recommended, a 28-70mm 2.8 Canon and a 80-200mm 2.8 Tokina. When my digital point and shoot broke last October, a friend finally convinced me to go digital with my SLR and I bought a Canon D60 from a friend. The rest of my equipment includes a Canon flash, a tripod, and a 50mm 1.8 Canon lense. I need to buy an extra battery, another memory card and a card reader ... then I can start saving for the 10mm wide angle lense I'm dying to get.

Sept 08 Update: Well I got the extra battery, the card reader, a 4 GB memory card and a flash diffuser but still no wide angle lense. I did however upgrade to the Canon 30D which I'm really excited about. I will be testing it out over the next week and hope to have the opportunity to shoot with it at a concert soon.