About John

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                                           JOHN CONROY – PHOTOGRAPHER/ARTIST

 As a young man looking for his way, John Conroy was spending a great amount of time on and near the ocean. He wanted to try to record the scenery and events that were happening around him, so he purchased his first camera. Believe it or not, the model he purchased was a Kodak 126 mm format camera.  John spent lots of time and energy running around photographing everything he could. It occurred to him somewhere along his travels that Photography would be a great career and opportunity to earn a living.

Soon John was upgrading his camera to the professional Pentax Spotmatic with a lens or two. He was fascinated with the magic that he was performing with camera and film. His parents insisted that he continue his education, so John began looking into Photography Schools. In his search he came across Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California. At that time, California was the “promised land” to him so he sent in his application and what he thought at that time was a portfolio of his work. As fate would have it he was accepted and headed west to California.

Conroy trained at Brooks Institute for two years and spent another year getting a liberal arts degree. He was fortunate enough to be able to find work in the photographic field which allowed him to stay in Santa Barbara. John held three jobs. He worked as a darkroom lab assistant for a wedding and event photographer at the historic Biltmore Hotel. He also was staff photographer for an “alternative” newspaper in town called the Santa Barbara News & Review. His third position was photographer for the University of California at Santa Barbara in the Arts and Leisure Services department. The position at UCSB morphed into several new and creative projects including the Men’s Basketball media guide, Woman’s volleyball program and game photos, and event photographer for the Concerts, Arts and Lectures Committee. It was through this affiliation he became involved with the music industry and Pacific Presentations, a major concert promoter based in Los Angeles. Working with Pacific Presentations led to John photographing popular music groups in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco.

 After completing his study at Brooks,  Conroy spent two years as an apprentice photographic assistant in Europe. He mentored as an assistant, and production manager for catalogue work with cutting edge Studio PPS in Hamburg, Germany, and as a freelance photographer for music industry clients in London, UK.

 Conroy later landed as a freelance photojournalist back in California. Many of his clients and subjects became household names we all can relate to today. Rock bands Santana, Crosby & Nash, Grateful Dead, Rod Stewart & Faces, The Tubes and the Gregg Allman Band. His clients include Pacific Presentations, Avalon Attractions, FM Productions, A&M Records, Capital Records, Universal Music Group, Rhino Entertainment and Bill Graham Presents in the music industry, and also commercial clients – Colorcraft, Sky West Airlines, and Star of India to name a few. He was commissioned to do editorial work for Rolling Stone, Creem and Maxim magazines. Recent projects include CD packaging and CD booklets for The Jerry Garcia Estate and Grateful Dead Productions, as well as collector series hard cover books by Genesis Publications and several 5oth Anniversary projects for The Beach Boys.