Pink Floyd. David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Richard Wright.

That was the first concert Dee Lippingwell photographed, back at the PNE gardens in the 1970s. Since then, the world-renowned concert photographer has shot almost all the biggest names in rock 'n' roll, and most of them are in her second book, First Three Songs... No Flash!

"I wasn't at Woodstock because I'm too young," said Lippingwell, who now resides in Surrey. "It was on the other side of the country and I wasn't really involved in the music industry at the time."

In a career spanning 40 years, Lippingwell has shot such larger-than-life rock acts as Aerosmith, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Eric Clapton, KISS and Van Halen - usually just the first three songs of a concert and without use of a flash, as the title of her latest book suggests.

She got her start snapping for the Georgia Straight after she showed her portfolio to then-media editor Bob Geldof (before he was knighted). While Geldof didn't hire her - he and his girlfriend fled the country once immigration found they were working there illegally - Lippingwell got the job under the next editor and her career took off from there.

"When I started, it was really difficult for me to get in because everybody thought I was a groupie," she said. "I kept saying, 'No, I'm a mom and I want to do this for my career.'

"At the very, very beginning of my career, I was sitting reading the Bible: Rolling Stone. I was looking for photo credits and I thought to myself, 'What am I going to feel like when I see my name there?'"

At the time, she was sent to shoot the Nor'wester '76, a concert festival featuring the Guess Who and Blue Oyster Cult that was billed as a mini-Woodstock. She said the promoter took off in the middle of the night once he realized he couldn't afford to pay the bands.

"The fans burnt down the racetrack - and I was there, and I was taking pictures," said Lippingwell. "So three weeks after sitting on my couch, wondering what I was going to feel like to have my name in Rolling Stone, I had an advanced copy in my hand with not only photos, but a byline. It was like, 'Whoa!'"

But her favourite concert to date was Toronto Rocks, the SARS benefit concert from the summer of 2003. The lineup featured the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Rush, the Flaming Lips and Blue Rodeo, among others.

"I was one of the photographers picked to go to the SARS concert in Toronto, which was probably the most amazing thing that I'd ever seen in my whole life, and still to this day," she said. "To have half a million people, it was just mind-boggling.

"There were a lot of photographers from all over the world and Mick (Jagger) picked six photographers to work the front of the stage, and I was one of them."

In a departure from her 1987 book, The Best Seat in the House, Lippingwell decided to self-publish her latest work, a 216-page black-and-white paperback packed with shots from the pit. She also added a number of stories about her experiences shooting at the front of the stage and how the music industry has changed for photographers.

"Nobody checked for cameras in the '70s," she said, adding that no one taught concert photography either. "I taught myself - nobody knew how to teach me. They didn't know how to work with those lights."

work with those lights." But gathering four decades of work together into one refined coffee table read has been a lengthy process for Lippingwell. And, the same way camera technology switched from film to digital, the publishing industry has changed since her first publishing effort.

"When I did my first book, I was at the printer for eight hours making sure that all the photographs were correct," she said. "I'm not able to do that with this, so I am just biting my nails in anticipation to see how they printed the photos."

First Three Songs... No Flash! is available now through Lippingwell's website. To see more of Lippingwell's work and to purchase her new book, visit deelippingwell.com.

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