I am by occupation a designer, yet a passion for photography and music have accompanied me throughout my life. I see an aesthetic element running through all these threads. In a simplistic overview: design is essentially utilitarian, though it may hold beauty; whilst art may have beauty, but essentially it is about emotion. It was a desire to visually capture some of the emotion in the music which I so enjoyed that led me to pursue rock ‘n’ roll photography in my twenties.
The responsibilities of parenthood eventually put an end to that career, and I spent the next few decades focusing primarily on my design practice. Then, after several decades of these negatives sitting idle in my basement, I had a period of forced convalescence where I needed some meaningful distraction, thus providing the opportunity to scan any photos still of interest from the 40,000 odd black and white negatives I had hung onto for so long (plus twelve boxes of colour slides). As it happened there were some 3,000 rock ‘n’ roll photos in amongst them and, with some help from some friends, these evolved into the book: “ECHOES BEYOND THE NIGHT – Rock ‘n’ Roll Photos from the 70s & 80s”.
The Studio Gallery exhibition represents a curated selection of these photos as part of the 2025 Head On Photo Festival – (the biggest photo festival in the southern hemisphere).
Tony has had a passion for photography since his early uni-student days, when he bought his first camera, rolled his own film, and developed it upon return from a three-month trip through Singapore and Sumatra. This necessitated constructing the first of many darkrooms that he built over the next half a decade to support his ‘other profession’, ie moonlighting as a rock ‘n’ roll photographer. He regularly published in the late 70s and early 80s in RAM (Rock Australia Magazine).
However, when he and his wife Prue started a family, this prematurely curtailed his rock ‘n’ roll photographic career. Instead, he focused his attention on the more reliable (and better paying) occupation of a designer. Opportunities to indulge in his photographic passion over the next few decades were largely restricted to travel, family, and the many requests he received to be the photographer at friends’ weddings.
Though photography did play an important role in his professional practice, often bridging that gap between praxis and theory (ie teaching). And he was particularly drawn to various expressions of ‘cultural landscapes’, sometimes at the interface between built and natural environments, and elsewhere those infrequent examples of ‘barely revealed evidence of the Anthropocene’.
Street photography seemed a natural progression, ie morphing from ‘cultural landscapes’ to ‘social landscapes’. And whilst arguably there are similarities between street photography and those earlier days of rock ‘n’ roll, there is a vast difference, especially in terms of how you engage or impose yourself upon your subjects. Rock ‘n’ roll stars kind of want and expect this. People in the street might not be so keen, so there is an extra step of unspoken negotiation and approval often involved.
This is something Tony wasn’t particularly comfortable with for a long time.
In fact, initially he was so concerned about upsetting people that he came back from that original three-month trip through Singapore and Sumatra without taking hardly a single photo of anyone in them, despite these being some of the more populous countries of the region.
His most recent book suggests that he is now more comfortable in this capacity.
EXHIBITIONS:
• “Homantech” jewellery design and photo exhibition (Chris Maron - maker) at Katherine Kalaf Gallery, Cottesloe, 2007.
• “Echoes Beyond the Night” black and white, rock ‘n’ roll photography exhibition at Gallows Gallery, Mosman Park, 2024.
• “Echoes @ Ode” black and white, rock ‘n’ roll photography exhibition at Ode to Sirens, Fremantle, 2025.
• “Echoes @ Raine” black and white, rock ‘n’ roll photography exhibition in Raine Square, Perth, 2025.
• “Echoes @ Wanderlust” black and white, rock ‘n’ roll photography exhibition at Wanderlust, Perth, 2025.
• “Echoes Beyond the Night” Head On Photo Festival exhibition at The Studio Gallery, Yallingup, 2025.
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS:
• “ECHOES BEYOND THE NIGHT - Rock ‘n’ Roll Photos from the 70s & 80s,” Halstead Press, Sydney, 2024
• “A BRIEF LOVE AFFAIR – Hong Kong Bars & Back Alleys”, EastPro, Hong Kong, 2025.
• Tony has been invited to give a number of presentations to the Leica Club Perth (2015-2025).
COMPETITIONS:
• 2022 CITY OF SYDNEY Australian Life Photography Competition - Finalist
• 2025 PERTH CENTRE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY Iris Award - Finalist
• 2025 HEAD ON PHOTO FESTIVAL Open Program - Exhibitor