David Leslie Anthony started his career as a fashion hairdresser and achieved international acclaim at the tender age of 21. Having accomplished all that he could in the beauty industry he embarked on a new career in fashion photography at 30. A self taught photographer, he learned photography the hard way, sleeping in parks, bathing in restrooms while assisting top fashion photographers in Paris. And today he is among the most celebrated names in this highly competitive field.  Fotoflock got the opportunity to speak to master photographer and learn more about his inspiring fashion career.

You started your career as a fashion hairdresser. What made you switch to photography when you were at the peak of your career?
I moved up the ranks quite quickly to become International Creative Director at the age of 21 with a major hairdressing company. There, my job was to not only create hair designs for the company, but to also oversee the hair fashion photo shoots and advertising. I also travelled worldwide performing on stage at the major hair shows. My work was published in numerous magazines, and eventually I began teaching myself photography. This was something I always felt drawn to.

Five years later, I then assumed this same position with another company and also began photographing all the press release photos and designing the staging for our shows.  I was 30 at the time. I felt I had achieved all that I could in the beauty industry and wanted to “retire” before I had nothing more to offer. That and because I had always loved art, fashion, film and photography, in the October of 1989 I embarked on a new career…that of a fashion photographer.

Today, you have ‘digital technicians’ who take a ‘five minute’ photo and spend ten hours in Photoshop using the same filters and plug-ins that anyone can purchase and use in the same manner as anyone else.

How difficult is it for a self- taught photographer to make inroads in the highly competitive photography industry?
I think it is more difficult now than when I started. Back then, we were shooting film and you had to learn photography before you could call yourself a photographer. We constantly tried various films and filters, learned lighting and printing, retouched our own work and experimented in the darkroom. We were forced to develop our own style or viewpoint and we often referenced the past to learn the various “cycles” in photography and fashion. Today, you have “digital technicians” who take a “five minute” photo and spend ten hours in Photoshop using the same filters and plug-ins that anyone can purchase and use in the same manner as anyone else. So what “identity” are they creating for themselves?  

If you look at the photographers in the major magazines today, 90% are in their late 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond. They all come from film backgrounds. What does this really mean?  It means that though we may shoot with a digital camera, we are doing so from a film photographer’s background of knowledge. As we are well aware of the past, we can take that knowledge and create a future. When I started, I was hungry for knowledge and experimentation. Today, I’ll hear people say on set “Oh! Just fix it in Photoshop”. Why should I spend ten hours fixing something [on a computer] that I can fix in 5 minutes on the set?

Can you tell us more on your training years in Paris?
Let me ask your readers this. How many are truly willing to make sacrifices for their career, and I mean real sacrifices?  I had saved money to relocate to Paris to become an assistant. Unfortunately, I didn’t check the exchange rate and when I got there, I realized that my money was not going to last even five months with what I needed to live. So, I found a remote area in a large park with a huge hedge grove and burrowed in to live in the park for the first few months, bathing in the park restroom. But I learned so many new things!  At night, I saw the city in “eyes” that many don’t see. I saw “photographs” in nearly every situation I came across.

As an assistant, I learned many things that people in schools don’t learn. I learned how to work with fashion editors, clients, models, and art directors. I learned how to be a “Director” and to get what I needed out of the model, how to put together shoot budgets and assemble the right crew for the right job. I learned that having talent was only a small part of the “big picture”, that when it came to an advertising or editorial assignment, you had to understand that client’s or magazine’s demographics and give as much creativity as their demographics could handle. Cosmopolitan is not Italian Vogue and vice-versa. At the end of the day, your job is to come up with the best photographs for that particular client’s needs.

How big an influence was Javier Vallhonrat in the early years of your photography career?
I became aware of his work back when I first started, through his work for Yohji Yamamoto and Sybine. It had a purity and brilliance of colour that I had not seen before. I would sit and study his work looking at the light sources and use of gels and other manipulations.

How important is a distinctive style in photography?
I teach my assistants that with “accidents” comes a world of knowledge if you are open to it. I always (and still do) kept notebooks of the work I did/do, and I have my assistants do the same. Back in 1990 I was selected by the fashion company Z.Cavaricci to shoot their fall campaign which ran in Vogue, GQ, Glamour, Rolling Stone, etc. They selected me based upon a visual look I came upon by accident and which I “pushed and developed” to make it my own look. This was the technique called “Cross-Processing”. Back at that time, only a handful were doing this (Javier being one of them).

Since I am self-taught, I went to the film store to buy colour developers. I came home with the wrong stuff and proceeded to develop my E6 film in a developer made for C41. I came up with these strange, wonderful colours. My friends who worked at a colour lab then told me I had developed the film in the wrong developer but I went ahead and bought every type of film I could and experimented with filters, developing times and more. That is how I began building my “name”. The next step was to figure out how to take this and adapt it for commercial assignments. I think back then with people like Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Peter Lindbergh, Paolo Roversi, Steven Meisel, and many many others, it was very important that your work has a “look”.

I think what is most important is that you have a distinct viewpoint towards your work. The visual “look” of your work (the way a photo looks) will constantly change as the fashion seasons change. For example if you are only shooting things “dark and moody”, then you won’t be working much in spring time when everything is brighter, more colourful.

I’ve found that it is always the people at the bottom level of this industry who have the biggest egos and the biggest opinions about those in the top tiers.

How do you deal with criticism of your work? Did being a leading professional previously make it easier?
I always looked at it this way and still do. The only person’s opinion that matters is the person paying me. People will always have “opinions” about someone else’s work. That is inevitable in this business. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here:  You will always have people who think Terry Richardson is a “bad photographer”. Terry is a great photographer!  He creates a tremendous amount of feeling “at the moment” in his work. If you have any technical knowledge at all, you’ll see that the lighting with his photos do not come from an on-camera flash alone. He uses multiple lights and light sources, and he knows how to use them quite well.

People place too much importance on what equipment one uses, when the most important thing is the person behind it. I shot the entire 2005 Von Dutch Clothing Campaign using just “throw-away” cameras. I was shooting denims and T-shirts and the look was “perfectly imperfect”. The models treated the cameras “loosely” and became less serious thus creating the “perfect” look we wanted. I’ve found that it is always the people at the bottom level of this industry who have the biggest egos and the biggest opinions about those in the top tiers.

You have travelled all across the world for your shoots. Which destinations have stayed with you the most? Why?
Paris, New York, Chicago, and London.  I just love the energy and excitement I feel in these cities. Every morning I wake up there I feel as if something exciting will happen. Presently I live in Chicago though I make the bulk of my living in NYC from New York and European clients. What I like about Chicago is that I can make and/or find places that look like Scotland, London, Paris and other places that I have travelled to.

Would you consider yourself a puritan who stands on the other side when most turn to Photoshop and other photo editing software?
I consider myself a “purist” when it comes to photography itself. Though I came from a film background, I shoot both, digital and film. I also use the computer and Photoshop for editing. But I do 95% of the work on-set, like lighting, filtering, metering, light gels, fog machines and multiple exposures. I create my photographs on-set with a vision and a direction of where I want to go. I know at the time of shooting what I am going to do in post-production. I don’t shoot a picture and then sit on a computer to figure how/what I want to do with the photo. That is what I disagree with. Because if you do that then I cannot help but wonder if you are a photographer or a “digital technician”?

I also don’t let anyone retouch my work. I’m the one who shot it and so I’m the one with the vision in my head as to how it should look and “feel”. How can a person claim the work as theirs if they pressed the shutter and someone else did the post-production work and applied the various plug-ins? When I see a photo that has obviously been Photoshop-ed to death, my first question is, “Where are the raw files?” because I am sure that the original does not come even close to the finished product. And then I can see my thoughts drifting towards, “The person who snapped this photo does not know photography”.

In the major fashion markets now they say there are “two schools of thought”. There are the Photographers and a new group they refer to as “Digital illustrators”. Notice how they don’t even call them photographers? No I am not against digital nor the use of it. Like I said, I also do shoot digital but I’m against digital technicians who don’t know photography.

We know that you carry a different playlist for every shoot. How much does music inspire your photography?
How do you know this? Yes, I rotate the music in my ipod shuffle (given to me by the Elite Agency as a Christmas present), for every shoot. I programme music as per the “feel” and direction of that particular shoot. It is very important to me that the music “tells me and the others” what the shoot is about, that it is like one big movie, filled with emotions and feelings. Some get it, some don’t. When I’m on location, I have the music playing in my ears through ear phones and my own movements “fall and rise” with the music.

If not a fashion photographer, what other stream of photography would you follow?
Wow, good question. I’ve been shooting fashion since 1990, but I do enjoy going to the florist to find unique flowers and photographing them (with film) against a simple white seamless ala Avedon. I think I enjoy this because it is just me, light, film and the singular floral.

If you ever got the opportunity to shoot The Rolling Stones for a magazine, where and how would you like to shoot them?
I can’t answer that because I really don’t know. I’ve always loved the Stones, especially Mick and Keith. Keith always played “Keith Richards guitar” and didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought!

Who are the photographers you have worked with till date that you drew inspiration from when shooting?
Many of these people I’ve come to know personally and some I’ve only met. Others are photographers who are always challenging and pushing themselves and there is something about their work that I love. They are the ones creating what others copy. These include Nick Knight, Javier Vallhonrat, Mario Testino, David Sims, Mario Sorrenti, Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, Albert Watson, Stan Malinowski, Craig McDean, Paolo Roversi, Tim Walker, David Bailey, Melvin Sokolsky, Christopher Mcaub, Terry Richardson, Bruce Webber,  Brigitte Lacombe, Ellen Von Unworth, Tom Munro, Pamela Hanson, Greg Lotus, Greg Kadel, Satoshi, Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort, and I’m sure there are more, but this is what immediately comes to mind.

What these people have in common is that they all came from a film background even though most are shooting digital now.

	Quick Four: Your favourite printer: Epson 2200 and Epson 4870 Photo Scanner Your favourite shoot: I’ve had too many good shoots to list only one. Your preferred location: Paris! Your ideal day: When everything just “falls into place”. I work with 80% of the shoot planned out, and I leave the other 20% for those “wonderful accidents or changes” that can take a good image to a great one! You have to be willing to “see” that something might be much better than what you had initially planned out for a given shot or shoot.

 Photos by David Leslie Anthony | Fotosocial