Hi I'm Tamara Lackey and on this episode
of reDefine Show for AdoramaTV
I sat down with Australian artist and
print competition chair Tony Hewitt
while we discussed the art of
challenging the assumptions about what
we see.
Check out the fantastic episode.
What are the genres that you have been
shooting in?
Well I was going to say that
I've done about 1000 weddings
but you corrected me, it's 987.
I was 13 short.
I've got one coming up.
This young lady was seven
and I did some work for her parents
and she always said that she wanted me to
photograph her wedding.
So I got a phone call about a month ago
and she said she was getting married.
I told her that I don't do weddings anymore
and she said, "You're doing mine."
So I did weddings, I've done thousands
of portraits, we still have a portrait studio.
Where exactly?
In Perth, Western Australia.
It's called Hewitt Studios and that's with my wife
and we photograph babies and families.
About 70% of our family portraits are past clients.
A lot of them are past wedding clients.
Incredible for your portraits.
I look at people today and I think
don't get too caught up in
shortcutting relationship building with
your clients. Don't just automate
everything don't make it so
technical and online and no contact
because you're not only doing a job,
you're building a foundation for a
lifetime in your career.
We see so many people
come into this industry now that
don't stay around very long.
They find it harder once
they get over the honeymoon period and
they get over the adrenaline that drives
them along and they've actually got to work.
But for me I've had that and so we
do that, I have a lot of commercial
clients now.
So I went from little commercial clients
to now I have maybe half a dozen
big commercial clients.
They provide a big chunk of our
income through the year,
regular ongoing work.
I'd love to talk to you about
the commercial work because I think some
people will be interested what I do with it.
It's very different
Then, of course, there's my
landscape and fine art.
I used to get annoyed when I
was starting out because people would
call you a wedding photographer.
They'd say, "Are you only a wedding photographer?"
No, I'm photographer.
And the same thing would happen the next day.
"Are you just a wedding photographer?"
Do they actually say "just"?
Yeah and I stop entering wedding in
competition because I didn't want
to be typecast.
So I started entering
portrait and then it was like,
"So you're a wedding portrait photographer?"
So I entered landscape and illustrative.
Then it was too long to say it all so
they just said, "So you're a photographer."
I'm an image maker.
I've started to understand, after all
these years, what it is that I like to
photograph, like, who am I as a
photographer?
Which comes out of who you are
as a person.
Some of us find that really young,
I mean, I know you're pretty
switched on on what you do and what your
goals in life are, both with a camera in
your hand and without a camera but some
people don't find out till later.
You fight things, you think I'm supposed to
be like this, I'm supposed to be like
that, I'm supposed to be doing what Jerry
does, I'm supposed to be doing what
such-and-such does.
Then you realize it
at some point, hopefully you
get to a point where this is what I do
and it's okay.
I started off, when
I was at school, I did really well with
mathematics and science.
So I was getting 96% in physics and maths
and things like that
but I loved art and in my
photography what I see if I look back on
my wedding work, if I look back on my
portrait work, simplicity is a concurrent theme.
It runs through everything I do.
Design, abstraction, geometry,
I've seen it over and over again.
Now my fine art work is my chance
to sort of say this is who I am as a photographer
and I'm comfortable with it because it's
who I am as a person.
It's actually been with me since
I was little.
There's things we all do.
So the other thing that
I do, that's been with me since I was a
little is, I grew up as the oldest child
of an oldest child, the oldest grandchild,
so I was in charge of kids all my life.
So I love people and I'm used to
working people. I'm used to sharing and
looking after people and being onstage
and all of that stuff, like what you do.
That's not something you go and learn to
do or choose to try and do, that's just it.
It's who you are.
Without a camera,
without someone filming,
you would still do what you do.
It's inherent to you.
Yeah.
So now, with the fine art,
I'm at a point where those pictures
are more me than anything ever.
It's cool, I love
making people think.
I love challenging
the way they see things.
So what better way then to view the world,
the planet, from above?
I love the ocean, I'm a beach guy.
Whether it's
fishing, surfing, diving, kayaking,
body surfing, all of that.
So all my exhibitions tend to be around water
and coast but simplifying that really thin
boundary between where we live our lives
and where we have our fears.
This is where I get really deep with my stuff.
I have pictures of the beach and it
might have tracks coming through to the
sand and on this on the beach you'll see
all these umbrellas and people on
towels and body boards and all of that.
Then the water gets deeper and deeper.
So literally, it's just a picture of the beach.
People look at that and
they can relate to it as being symbolic
of life because in Australia we live our
world, mostly we work in a city, we work
in an area that is pressure, stress, all
of that sort of stuff and then we escape
on the weekends whenever we can through
those sand dunes to that thin
boundary between the deep water and work.
That's what that beach represents.
People get there, you're down to
your bathers and you jump in the water
and it's just a relief.
But the deep water
represents something else, it also
represents our fears because
particularly where I live
is the shark capital of the world.
As you swim out even 20 or 30 meters you start
to be conscious of what's down there.
So that's just an example of what
an ocean, like a beach shot, might mean
for me. So I photograph it and I'm
thinking there's the beautiful literal shot,
there's the dynamics of a great photo,
color, balance, blah blah blah...
but to me there's more
because one of the things
I've learned over the years is that people
value something when they can truly
connect with it.
We had a chat today
earlier, briefly, about soul in pictures.
That to me is what soul in pictures is.
Can you can you create a
visual that somebody at a deep level
looks at and doesn't even
necessarily understand why,
they just go, "Wow, that's me.
That's my life.
That's something that I don't know
why but it means something to me."
It's not just pretty.
That is one of the things I mentioned to you
was that there's such an
apparent soulfulness in your fine art
landscape work.
Would you use the word "landscape"?
Yeah...
By now you know I don't
like labels but it doesn't bother me.
People come into my
exhibitions and they're printed on a
beautiful rag paper and I do not exhibit
them with glass over them, we might have
one or two to show people what they look like
but the bulk art have no glass, so
people can look at the pictures and they
can see they're tactile but they'll
look at them and they'll say,
"Are these really photographs?"
And I don't really care.
Then I'll get photographers saying,
"These aren't really photographs."
It's kind of crazy.
So people look and say they're
not photographs, they're paintings and
the photographers say they're not
photographs and I look over and say,
"They are photographs, that's how I took them."
Fine art landscapes is probably best.
The gallery now look at my work
and they just basically say it's fine art.
So we're just going to stick to calling
it fine art.
Like I said, most people come in
and they question whether they're
photographs anyway.
Who cares?
I'm not really a purist.
I really appreciate
the camera artistry,
in camera artistry and I'd say I'm
pretty good at capturing a picture in my
camera but I'm also pretty good in doing
post-production.
The reality is most of
my fine art landscape does not have much
post-production.
It's pretty much what the camera
sees and then I bring out the tonality, I
bring out the contrast, I bring out
the saturation where I want to tell the story.
So I'm all about using the raw
file and expressing my narrative, the
soul, the feeling that I had when I was
in that environment
to share it.
How do you literally
take these photographs?
I use Phase One XF System,
I have a 80MP, that's the IQ280
and Schneider lenses.
Most of my aerials are done with a
standard lens, which for medium format
is 80mm but for say,
35mm users it's 50.
It's usually out of a helicopter or a plane,
I don't use drones.
I've never used a drone.
I've flown one for 10 minutes for fun.
Are there drones that could take that large
of a cameras set up?
There's a couple of drones that carry
Phase One cameras,
if you can afford the insurance.
Yeah, exactly.
So for me, to use a drone is akin to an
artist or a painter having a robot
paint for them or asking someone else to
hold the brush and then telling them a
little bit to the left, a little bit to
the right.
It's the same with competition prints.
I have no problem, no judgment,
when people send their prints to someone
to do the work for them.
All my competition prints I conceive,
I shoot, I edit, I print.
You want to have your hands on for
all of it.
I am a control freak.
Also known as...
An artist.
When it comes to my artwork I am really
personal. The only thing I don't do
is cut my own mats but I won't let my
framer put the prints in the mats.
I will be to the mm because I've judged so
many images and when I say that,
I've been exposed to so many images
as a judge...
Maybe you could share your role when
you talk about judging so many images.
Well as you know,
I've been chairing some judging
rooms here for quite a few years now.
I've judged here on and off for over twelve years.
I'm the current Australian Awards Chair.
I did basically what Jerry
does for WPPI.
Jerry Ghionis for WPPI, yeah.
So I do that for AIPP.
AIPP has a ton of international
recognition. It's not just like
"that Australia thing."
It's a huge competition.
I think our country punches above
its weight for photographers.
It's because you get the light,
that's why.
Is that what it is?
You haven't heard that before?
It's only because of their light.
I thought it was the talent and the water.
I've judged all over the place.
So plenty of exposure to looking at
pictures as a judge.
I'd a lot of online competitions
and things like that.
The other thing is that, as a speaker,
because you have to actually consciously
go through what it is you do,
it reinforces what you know
and what you don't know.
It reinforces what you should do
and what you shouldn't.
It's all teaching, sharing, mentoring,
all of that.
So when I'm looking at
taking my pictures I want that camera
coming back to that in my hand.
The camera has got to be...
We talk about getting to the point
where your camera is an extension of you.
To me if I go through a drone, I've
got all this technology between me and
what it's seeing.
I can kind of see how I could one day
use a drone maybe but I still feel
like I want the brush in my hand.
I can understand that completely.
Thank you so much Tony I really
appreciate that, I'm looking forward to
our next episode where we dig even
deeper into these mind-blowing images.
Check us out here next time on AdoramaTV
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