Jess Isaiah Levin
Classical Photography
Raleigh, North Carolina

I've been doing portrait and wedding photography for many years, but bring some breadth of experience to the job.  For those curious about my background, here is just a bit about my life, past and present:

I was born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1951, and grew up surrounded by a family of professional musicians and visual artists.  Despite training in physics and math, my career path has been entirely within the arts, though with simultaneous areas of emphasis in contrasting fields - musical performance, composition, and of course photography.  I have lived in central North Carolina since 1974, with the exception of a year spent in New Mexico.  I'm fortunate to have been married for twenty years to a brilliant and talented woman, Pam Halverson.  We share our home with our sweetheart of a dog, Photon.

The photo "bug" hit with a vengeance when I began high school.  I was able to set up a temporary darkroom in our family kitchen, and also managed to acquire a camera that permitted through-the-lens viewing and full control of all exposure parameters.  The magic of seeing a black and white image "come up" on paper in the developer tray has always remained a source of excitement, and the creative possibilities afforded by both camera and printing began a lifelong quest.  I did my first professional portrait jobs while an undergraduate, and never lost my love for exploring the interaction of light and faces, expression and gesture.  In a sense, the "raison d'être" for an artist is to learn to see more!  While a wedding client may feel that my reason for being there is to record things as they happen (which is certainly true), it is also my purpose to capture the feelings of the participants.  Just as a fine portrait can display something of a person's character, a successful group of event photos should reveal emotions as well as appearances and actions.  I am always thrilled when the people involved react to the photos by saying "it was like being there again; that's how it felt!"