I never thought I had an artistic bone in my body until I picked up a camera....
Misty L. Rayburn was introduced to the local scene on May 13th 2001 when she
attended a show being held at the Newport Music Hall. The headlining band
was Collective Soul but it was the opening band that would start it all.
The Band's name was "Swim" and consisted of front man Joe Hedges,
Cello/Guitarist TJ Miller, Bassist Jason Morgan, Guitarist Travis Delaney and
Drummer Sam Debrozsi. They later became July For Kings ( former MCA
recording artists ).
Misty would work with July For Kings up to the present day, shooting shows so that the band would have pictures to post in their blog even as the band went through changes of style, names and members. Currently the band is known as Joe Hedges and Misty looks forward to shooting a show with them sometime soon.
Working with JFK opened the flood gates to the Columbus local scene and Misty met bands such as Proximity Grey,
Introspect ( Openers for Bon Jovi in Columbus ), Jaded Era ( Openers for Bon
Jovi in Cleveland & Original artist of a Invisible, a song that was covered by
Ashlee Simpson ), Seventh Echo (Multiple time participant in the Van's Warped
Tour), and Embassy ( Who recently signed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV, will
have a featured spot on MTV's forthcoming "Bands on the Rise" documentary and
will be featured on MLB '07 for the Playstation 3 ).
Over the time she worked with these bands, Misty taught herself the ins and outs of concert photography. She also upgraded from her original Olympus D-360 (1.3 Megapixel) to an Olympus Stylus 400 (4 Megapixel) and finally to an Olympus Evolt E-300 (8 Megapixel digital SLR) with two lenses ( 14-45 mm f/3.5 - 5.6 Zuiko lens & a 14-54 mm f/2.8 - 3.5 Zuiko lens ).
With this change, and at the encouragement of many of the bands she worked with, Misty decided to go pro. Instead of shooting just live shows, she has expanded to include promo shoots. Her work has been featured on many live show posters for various bands, on the inside liner of Michael James' album "Work Your Way Back" and most recently as the latest press kit photo for Seventh Echo.
