Fine Art Photographer & Director: Tony Kelly – Visual Fantasy, Originality, & Creating a New Language Of Photography

19:49Tony Kelly:I mean, it's the greatest event of the year, really, isn't it? I think it makes anything else, wipes everything else out. as I say that. And the thing about Ronnie is he's in the middle of it. He's such a humble person. Yeah. Very discreet and humble. There's no bravado. There's nothing. He just gets it done. And he's a focused pro. Yeah. You know. And I think people around, everyone's inspired by him. I agree. Bravo to him.

20:11The Gstaad Guy:Bravo to Ronnie. Bravo to Ronnie. In the center of St. Moritz, we have the Bedruth's Palace. Yeah. Where we're seated today. My local. We recorded a great episode of this podcast with the managing director of the palace, Richard Lundenberger. and we've said this, he's the mayor of the town. And this is the town hall. The Druze is the town hall. We're sitting in it. We're sitting right in the center of it. You spent a lot of time here. I do. Can you paint a picture of what that looks like in practice? Okay.

20:43Tony Kelly:I would say, there's so many lures to this. The first thing would be, I come here a few days a week. It would be my local. I say local as in we dine here and it's a fancy local. The most important thing here for me are the staff. From the porters to the maitre d's, to the ladies who work in there and the gents who work in there. To the front, from the front to the kitchen, to the chef. I've got to know quite a few of them naturally over the years. And they've obviously seen some pictures that I shot with the palace early on. they're the reason I come here and I think that the Richard and his team do a phenomenal job firstly of who they have working here and there's just a they're proud to be a part of this place but I takes me 10 minutes to get to the restaurant out of me wanting to talk to the staff and it's It's funny, I travel a lot and I just gravitate towards the guys here, the people who turn the wheels and keep such a magnificent establishment.

22:00Tony Kelly:Not moving, not operating, growing and getting better. And it's just so wonderful, this place. And I would say it all goes back to the palace, you know. It's like, it's an institution and it's a special place. But it's again, you know, in Miami, we live next door to Faina Hotel. And I have this, it's these two places. I have this relationship with the staff there. It's just something familiar, you know, something home. It's something, because when you're traveling a lot, it's like, it's lovely to see familiar faces. Another thing is when they're wonderful people. So I purposely take 10 minutes to get to my seat because I know them and they're friends.

22:40Tony Kelly:And I remember last year when the palace closed after the season, I walked down the street and there was a gang of people outside cafe up the street. And I, one of them went, Tony, and then Mr. Kelly. I said, who's this lot? And then I walked over. I said, wait, I reckon. And it was the entire staff at the palace out having their end of season coffee or jar or whatever they were, a drink or whatever. And it took me a sec to kind of refresh because I'm so used to seeing everyone in this formal attire on the palace. you know the guys out front and and i sat there with the man and i think and i was just like they've become friends you know people who i really value you know because they do put the smile on the people's face you know i have the same in miami and in fine hotel where we spend a lot of time as well and there are two places so i'm very grateful to have these because you feel home absolutely and it's the people who work here yeah you know and i think it's it's a great

23:36The Gstaad Guy:representation of something I actually see that's unique to Swiss mountains, but also to St. Morris in particular. There's these generations of families that have been coming here and this beautiful community that people can quickly become a part of if they understand and contribute and share the values

23:58Tony Kelly:of people here. It's very clear up here in these hills. if you're positive and you're respectful and you come in here and you contribute and you have good intentions in my case I've definitely been welcomed and I said that at the start I never regard myself as a local I have to respect for the locals but it's definitely if you contribute and you're respectful and you do what you I think you'll be welcomed and I think we need always people who will come with positive energy and positive attitude and want to contribute I think that's it but to go back to the palace like they really they it is the town hall you know and I shot Richard was very generous with Ann Sophie as well there I stayed in a hotel up in the town in early days here um was up above at the back of the air in my store and I looked down one morning I opened the curtains and I just saw the roof the roof of the tower with this kind of 60 degree slightly curved pitch on the roof and i just saw the bond scene of the guy skiing down there and i immediately called to ann sophie who's always been she's major um support and has set up a lot of the pictures or helped me kind of uh um produce and get these pictures we shot up here and I said I have this idea of two guys skiing down the roof the tower roof and she was like okay let me see what I can do and she's always been she is like huge huge help and support here and she came back and said okay Richard said we can do it well so we harnessed two guys onto the roof and I mean it was like this and um it was probably the most difficult picture I've ever taken in my life well and we stayed here at the palace when we were shooting and i always remember joanna comforting me one evening uh as i was in tears sitting in the corner of the room with this beautiful view over the over the lake but i really it was the first time i was in tears in my work from work because i had the weight of the palace behind me we had like basically these very qualified they're very talented skiers on the roof and it took a few days to set up and I started to doubt if I was going to get the picture, which never happens.

26:16Tony Kelly:Never. I always know I have like two or three plans and I can get it somehow. But this was one that I was like, I'm in trouble here. This is the thing. The next evening we got the picture. It's one of my proudest pictures. It's called First Descent and it's two gentlemen skiing down in palace. Uniforms. Uniforms. These beautiful Napoleonic uniforms. But the palace has been a, it is the headquarters here, isn't it?

26:41The Gstaad Guy:I love that. And we spoke that some of your customers are some of these St. Moritz icons that live in a very particular way. Very discreet people. Very discreet people. There's no bravado again. A deep appreciation for the outdoors and the mountain. Yeah. These deep family ties and family values.

27:01Tony Kelly:Of course. And that's Samaritz. Samaritz, of course you will have this circus that comes true here. Yeah. You know, various moments and people coming here to party and stuff. But the true core and the spirit of Samaritz that I know, that I've been, I guess, welcomed into, I'm very grateful for that. Very discreet people, very elegant people, class, like real class, you know. There's no discussion of wealth or asset. Like, it's just, it's a different world. And I think right now in society, when we see how, with social media, which I love, by the way. I'm like this guy hacking on about social. Wonderful.

27:41Tony Kelly:It's given a voice. It's given a platform to so many artists. But I think it's refreshing to come up here and see that discreet attitude where people are not talking about that. And they have it. You know, they've done it. And I love that. It's very refreshing and very relaxing to be around. That's the spirit of town. I mean, I go back to my early days here. I took that picture. And the following day, I went driving around. I was like, wait a minute. There's an airport here also. So, and there's a lake and there's a helicopter and the town were very supportive of my pictures in those days. And still today where I can fly a helicopter or take a helicopter up, landed on the mountain, obviously only for official photo productions.

28:26Tony Kelly:And it's like, it just goes back. It's like a James Bond set for me. And I'm really grateful for that. You know, that, that I don't take for granted. And I go actually speaking to James Bond, one of my big influences was Willie Bogner of Bogner. skiwear who shot who was also a pioneer of these techniques where he sellotaped or connected 80 cameras to this helmet this big metal helmet he had constructed and he skied down the mountain so he had like this kind of which is obviously now like a gopro and a stick but he shot the james bond scene of roger moore that chase where roger moore's out skiing the the bad guys and he was a huge and he shot that here well he shot a lot of stuff here so i felt when i start shooting here i was kind of i won't say stepping into his shoes but definitely trying to take up or taking it up or somebody else had left it off and i think my initial picture the ferrari people appreciated that because it was like ah they were familiar with you know kind of a luxurious action visual language or set of images and i was i was very uh very proud to have shot that stuff and continue to shoot those actually bond inspired pictures but yeah samaritz is great it's my

29:41The Gstaad Guy:winter studio and i love that it's a great place to be i feel like there's a growing appetite from people who like me in many ways love that story and that james bond energy we've spoken about so much who may have never even experienced it like for me it's it can't be nostalgia i wasn't born yet so for me it's actually it's actually a deep curiosity yeah about this time that i never lived through but that i think has so much beauty yeah and this incredible timelessness i think i

30:13Tony Kelly:think it really did yeah i don't think it's a it's like it really was beautiful i when i moved to west hollywood in los angeles um i chased this nostalgic just what you what you'd said about You weren't born yet. I wasn't around in the golden days of Hollywood. And when I moved there, I lived there for 13 years and I shot and directed quite a bit of stuff there. I immediately went to Beverly Hills Hotel, Sunset Tower, Chateau Marmont, chasing that era. And I never found it, which in a way was kind of great because it was left to my imagination or the texture, the walls or the, you know, the Beverly Hills Hotel still has sort of Chateau and Tower.

30:57Tony Kelly:but I always remember being in Jackie Collins the great author, a great writer Jackie Collins, who I love her books, Hollywood Wives and all this, just unapologetically coarse description of the shenanigans in Hollywood, she's brilliant and I was in her house and she has this sketch on the wall, the Polo Club 1970s and it was like Sinatra like all the greats it was like a sketch, a cartoon and I was like that's what I've been looking for for all these years I've been living in Hollywood. I never found it because it doesn't exist anymore. And I think there's a beauty to not having experienced something that's very nostalgically attractive, you know, something that kind of stimulates you or inspires you, I should say.

31:46Tony Kelly:But that, I think, is a beautiful thing. Yeah. And we get to create that. Yeah, exactly. you also you you know what you have created is in that same uh visual language we say that again or genre it's like it is it's a fantasy and it's something very safe and it's super i love what you've done i appreciate it i think it's sort of light-hearted humor and we have to keep it fun

32:12The Gstaad Guy:i think so too and i think it's um the media capital of the world is the u.s and i think the U.S.'s storytelling of things, either fictional or news-based, are especially recently rooted in extreme points of view. And I think the 80s was far more nuanced, where the humor didn't have to be a laugh-out-loud joke. It could be a chuckle. And the news didn't have to be intense and polarizing. It could actually be just informative.

32:45Tony Kelly:And I think the day that magazines start putting celebrities on the covers changed everything because politicized, publicists involved. I mean, I lived in a shop in Hollywood for 13 years and I got to a point where I was like, I won't do celebrities. I do not even want to see a celebrity. I love to appreciate their talent, but I never wanted to photograph them because you have a publicist standing over you and it's like, you can't do this, you can't do that. And that's just, it's not for me. but that freedom went I think with the increase in the amount celebrity covers celebrity endorsements where prior to that if you think about ads nobody knew it was in the picture she could do what you wanted and I would love to see a return in less conservative advertising and that because the ad agencies the people who who write up the ads it's so layered and it's I listen to occasion most of the time people commission me to shoot their their commercial campaigns and it's just like what would you like to do and i say well i think this is best and it's like okay go and do it occasionally have to speak to agencies and listen i'm just going with all due respect yeah the job is for the agency is to keep the client it's not to actually create an award-winning campaign in most cases with all respect i'm not criticizing but i would i kind of shoot my pictures as if sometimes they are ads in the 80s.

34:08Tony Kelly:The girl sitting on the plane, can you imagine the name of the jet company across it? That's what sells. Oh, people are afraid now, which is kind of sad. The palace, the guy skiing off the roof. So I operate kind of in between. I have a great freedom there. And I pay everything myself. I pay for all my own productions. Full control. Full control.

34:29The Gstaad Guy:This podcast is brought to you by Pubelle by The Stard Guy, bringing you charms hand-painted with enamel on 925 sterling silver, allowing you to express all the things you love and all the things you might question. From reaver bateaux to baggammon board and caviar tins to paddle rackets, there is a Pubelle charm or completed set for everyone in The Know. Thank you so much for watching and enjoy the podcast. yeah i think that can only work that sort of freedom to tell your own story can only work when you cannot control the story and do the thing yourself you know it's a lot of the time it's

35:12Tony Kelly:putting the money down as well you have to have division in the first place but you got to put the money down i'm not afraid to do it i've never been afraid to spend yeah you know it's like it's

35:20The Gstaad Guy:a great investment yeah one of my favorite comedians and storytellers who i think storytellers nuance and comedy and it's again has a lot of that nostalgic feeling even though it's new is larry david yeah i think larry david's exceptional at this yeah especially being in the u.s and being in california yeah his his art form really stands out among this extreme humor he has this this nuanced in between yeah it's cashmere humor i guess it's very strong but

35:51Tony Kelly:it's kind of coded in cashmere exactly you know soft yeah it's chuckle yeah you know yeah it's great i like bill borough also who's a machine huh i don't know that's like for me the greatest of them all but he's a machine gun there's no uh cashmere to it but he's a visual genius it's all very visually driven but he's like he's really he's a real genius how did your relationship with the camera begin? It's a great question. There's pictures of me as a five or a six year old holding this camera. I had this grand, great aunt that came from, she was living in America and she's come home with all like nice clothes and for us.

36:32Tony Kelly:And she would give us all these gifts and cameras and stuff. And I just gravitated towards it, I guess. The actual camera, I didn't care about taking pictures, but I felt the camera was very empowering. It was like an accessory. And that stayed with me years later i always thought it was cool if you had a camera but i wouldn't take pictures today the complete opposite i've no real love i'm not a technical guy and i don't really the cameras are tools i'm not a guy i rarely will take a camera out unless i'm working but that was this kind of relationship at the start and my my mother would always tell yeah this you get cameras you know you're always cameras and then years later um there was it kind of it's really interesting there was just one day I said I'm going to be a photographer there was no you know philosophical or there was no like kind of a plan I was just like I'm going to be a photographer there was a great photographer who was a friend of my parents from the golf club in Ireland who was a brilliant news photographer and sports photographer and he kind of took me under his wing a little bit and helped me quite a lot actually and uh but it was just this I followed my footsteps essentially there i just like that's what i'm gonna do that's it and that's what i did i'm still doing today and you you just kind of gravity i guess you know and people say how did you get into photography i say it kind of got into me more so you know that way it's not like i but i always worked my ass off and i never was afraid to just give it everything you know still to like i always will you know But it was just, I guess it was just like meeting somebody and meeting a girl and meeting a partner.

38:11Tony Kelly:It's just, it just, it was a natural romance, I suppose, and it turned into a marriage. Yeah. You know.

38:17The Gstaad Guy:Do you think that relationship and that marriage can exist as easily today with iPhones and iPhone photography? I love, I love the question.

38:29Tony Kelly:I also love that you're, you, you, when you ask, you're sensitive to all of this. You know, you get it. it's not vacant you know what i mean you get it because you can play it's applicable to your own career um i think i'm so happy for young artists today when i went into fashion which was like i hated it but it was just it they were like things i could play when it was like a christmas treatment you had to be in with the editor you had to be you know you had then the Mario Testinos, the Limburgs, the Dimash Chelyes, who were the top guys. And unless you were in that, you were just outside. And I was always a guy who they would hire for very specialist gigs.

39:13Tony Kelly:They would want to shoot a party or they would want to, with this. And I'd shoot the story, it would be in one of the main magazines, Vogue or whatever it was. And I'd be like, I've made it now. And then you wouldn't hear from them for about two years. And they were like, we wanted. So you were absolutely reliant reliant on being a part of that team it would be like in athletic terms you have to be on the olympic team and that was like difficult i was younger than those guys and they really had it sort of testy you know i mean what a brilliant photographer brilliant brilliant all those guys everybody limbergh um you know sorrenti still brilliant but they had that scene sewn up so unless you were in that and you were a favorite of one of the great editors you're outside today that's complete opposite and i'm grateful for i say gratefully i'm delighted for young artists who are starting their career they never need to be published in any magazine a magazine is obviously in a different place than it was then so they create their own platform they create their own journey photography they create their own world you know and i think that that's a great time to be alive it's a great time to be an artist a great time to create is there a lot of absolute horseshit out there?

40:25Tony Kelly:Yes. Crap. Is there a lot of, is there more horseshit out there? Probably not. We're just seeing more of it because we're more exposed visually daily to horseshit. Is there some absolute dynamite out there of great talent?

40:41The Gstaad Guy:Yeah.

40:44Tony Kelly:It's beautiful to look. We see now these people who don't really do anything and they just post pictures to themselves knocking around events and you know holding handbags and stuff i mean that's fine whatever that's bubblegum you know but what i love is to see i'm flicking through instagram and i'll see people i'm like wow that's beautiful that person wouldn't have had a sniff yeah at being on the cover of vogue magazine or thing possibly not maybe i'm wrong yeah but that person today as an audience of half a million people and it's like it's fantastic yeah i mean that to me inspires me and there's stuff i see you know as an artist my my trajectory was helman newton was a great inspiration i used to go to jobs with helman newton books and i'd be flicking through the pages looking for elements and one day i no longer did that and i was like where do i go now and then i realized I didn't need that anymore.

41:45Tony Kelly:I was making my own ideas. And then there's this moment where you pass in your career where you're like, there is not, there are no references. You're, you're the one creating the references for other people. And I get letters from people saying, Oh, I did my thesis on this, or I did, you know, on your work and stuff. And it's like, it's a great moment, you know? So I kind of went a little bit off there, but it's, there's just this great visual pool and pool of talent out there. And they have a voice, they have a platform, they have an audience and that to me because I came from a place where you had to really like you were lucky if you got 10 pages in GQ or Vogue or whatever um it was like a huge thing and today you don't need that and I say bravo and get out there and do what you got to do you know as I said shoot what you love pump it out there and I tell people when they come looking for advice and stuff just you have a platform that nobody had 20 years ago yeah saturate it you know do the work and bang it out there yeah it's a great time you know fully aligned and i i love your optimism and i share

42:51The Gstaad Guy:your optimism i think the market is efficient as well i think good content good work will travel far and will be celebrated and bad work will just fall through the cracks but i still say the

43:10Tony Kelly:commodity or the diamond that is a good idea, an original idea, that is still as powerful, as valuable as ever. And the thing about hard work, it was Rory McIlroy, the great Irish golfer, who is a phenomenal beast of an athlete and of a mental side of his performance. Amazing. I look a lot at Rory. He said, hard work beats talent every day that talent is not working hard and that just gives me shivers you know because like i said it to my team here in the in the in samaritz here i was just like i don't care what we create this this winter i do care but i'm saying i know what our goals are i don't care if we achieve that what i do care is we do our best and we leave here saying we gave it 100 percent because weather you can't control so and that that that really is something i live by hard work does be talent yeah if talent's not working hard absolutely you know i like that

44:13The Gstaad Guy:line it's a good one isn't it yeah he knows a lot about it you know i mean you you guys share share that vision but also i think ireland yeah very cool place super the people i've met from there. I have dear friends who are Irish. They share this love for life, this love for different cultures, different people, and this celebration of everything in between. There's this incredible Irish spirit that I'm a big fan of. Me too.

44:42Tony Kelly:Can you tell me more about that? Well, I said this before, and it's something that gives me great strength in being able to navigate the places I work and the scene I suppose my work is based in let's say you know in Ireland the most popular guy is not the wealthiest guy it's the funniest guy or the person who's the most animating to tell a story and I'm not painting a picture of a lot of Irish people with fiddles sitting around the fire not at all it's a modern progressive very very very productive you know economically industrially it's a very progressive country um but the emphasis is not on the car you have or the wealth or what you have Irish people don't talk about what they do for Lynn they don't talk about their car they don't talk about their new watch or things they care about that stuff of course this is the materialism on every side but it's not status it's not it's substance very well set and that's something I take with me and when I go back home you immediately plug back into that I never lose it but you plug back into it or it plugs into you so to speak

45:56The Gstaad Guy:It's very well said, actually Ireland is not about status it's about substance, and I felt that

46:02Tony Kelly:You know, and you sit around the table or, I just don't want to say a bar because there's this cliche but it's probably true Let's say you're sitting around a bar and the popular, most powerful or the most attractive person is the person with the banter you know um and i just i'm very proud to be irish i'm very proud of the country it's grown into always was but it's just something that's like it's very very very progressive yeah you know forward thinking progressive in the in the mean in the in the context of like forward thinking and and it's um I think it's the largest English-speaking country in the EU.

46:46Tony Kelly:Oh, yes? After Brexit, I guess. Oh, yeah. You know? And they made the most of that, but they're clever people. But the emphasis is always on decency. Absolutely. But they're razor sharp, you know? I love the decency. Decency. Inclusivity. Joanna, my wife, she's German and she goes over there and her mind is just like she would live there tomorrow in a second. She loves Ireland. And they love her, you know? There's this great contract of the German, uh, humor, I guess, and the, the, the perspective mixed with the Irish. And she has a great, great time over there, but I'm very, very proud. And I, I always say that when I was an American band, like I'm Irish also, you know, I remember coming back through the Irish immigration back to Dublin the first time with my American passport.

47:30Tony Kelly:I thought I'll go through the American and the guy said, welcome home, Tony. And I was like, how, how do you know that I'm Irish? And he goes, cause it's written on your American passport. yeah that's like that's our list you know there's just that extra there's that extra spark yeah that's something that i'm absolutely very very proud of said that four times so i think so

47:51The Gstaad Guy:although today you're really playing the storytelling of fiction in many ways you're putting together these fictional environments that of course represent many real world things but you're in full control but you started your career in your 20s by actually just capturing real life as a news photographer. Yes. Which I think on a spectrum is the exact opposite. You know, it's actually waiting for the shot, sometimes a very unfortunate moment. Yeah, yeah. And using your camera and your skill to show the world something they otherwise wouldn't have access to. Yeah. Very different to what you do today.

48:29The Gstaad Guy:I'd love to understand. It's different.

48:32Tony Kelly:That was.

48:35Tony Kelly:The battle can sometimes be the same because you're dealing with people. But I actually went to photography college when I was 17. And I left after three months. I found it all too hippie-ish and too artsy for me at that time. Nice people. Friends still, some of them today. But my college education lasted three months. I say that in terms of there's people out there, artists, young photographers, directors, and aspiring directors who think that they have to go through a six-year or four-year degree in NYU or whatever, which is a brilliant, brilliant course. But you don't, you know, and I didn't.

49:23Tony Kelly:I learned the practical way. So I guess there's two different ways you can learn. You can learn practical or academically. and you know i or theoretically i definitely learned as i went much more hands-on approach um i left the college and i went working for a local newspaper called them i was like it driven always have been driven but like driven like a train and i called them and i said i'd like to work for you and they said well we just fired our photographer today just one of those anyway i went from there to national newspaper and i was the youngest ever to work at the national newspaper in Ireland, which was for me, it was like Atlanta in Hollywood.

50:00Tony Kelly:It was like amazing. And they'd send you out on news jobs and it would be bank robberies to murders to then sports. So you had this great rounded training where you could, you know, you could kind of use the camera to capture various different scenarios. And that's one of the great training that you receive as a news photographer. You're doing lots of different stuff. You've only got the president of Ireland, then you're photographing someone who was unfortunately murdered. and you're always kind of on the, you live in it, you know, you're eating your lunch in the cars, you're driving a high speed.

50:31Tony Kelly:But it was a brilliant master's or degree at least in photography, I guess. And that was my, they were my formative years. When I was 20, I then, there was this, I was 20 years old, like there was this horrendous situation in Rwanda, the Congo. And I asked the newspaper if they'd send me there because I wanted to cover this. I was really, I have a great friend still today, Kenneth O 'Halloran, who had been there. He was always a step ahead in those days. And I used to follow in his footsteps. You know, he's still a great advisor today or, you know, shoulder, I guess. But he had been, I said, I want to go.

51:17Tony Kelly:And the newspaper said, well, we can't send you, you know, for insurance reasons. So I said, no problem, I'm going to take some holidays. So I went to the local world travel, it was called, and I think it was like this kind of exotic travel agency or like far-flung destination. And I booked a ticket to Rwanda. Wow. Hooked up with an aid agency, 20 years old. My parents must have been terrified. And I photographed the very unfortunate, horrendous scene stand there. And from there, I got a taste for this kind of news um reportage so i did various and then i was sent to cover the war in afghanistan years later twice i was there from the very start so i'd done a lot of very and then i'd be dispatched to the world cup to photograph the world so i had this varied and very rounded um experiences photographing lots of different uh events and tragedies and sports events and that's the that's the kind of run of the mill for a press photographer and i was a press photographer 100 % hand on heart i was in um when i look back when you're on a job or you're on assignment and your camera breaks you don't have anybody there now i have dudes standing there who i can hand it to and i have a team and i have and it's amazing but i still learned how to kind of make things happen and I would go back to that night on the palace, on the tower, the roof of the tower.

52:44Tony Kelly:I was in a bit of a situation, but I channeled, I guess, or I channeled into those resourceful days where you're on your own, your camera breaks, you fix it, you find someone by, you know, steal one if you have to, but just make it. Because we always live by this matter. Nothing else matters, only the picture. And obviously humans matter a lot more than the picture. But in terms of a work context, and there's just great strength and I suppose resourcefulness that I learned from those days because you're on your own you're with a journalist they don't give a shit about what you're you know what I mean it's like you're on your own and the parallel with today is kind of the environment I one of the main kind of inspirations or moments that kind of pushed me more into what create my I don't want to be big head and say but I do believe I've created my own genre of photography and that was the goal and if I haven't I will you know I'm on the road to it but I think I think my pictures are instantly recognisable and that was always a goal but one of that came from from the news days where I would be photographing a scenario and my instinct would be like I wish the girl had a red dress on or I wish the police man standing beside her was more handsome or I wish she had black hair so I would kind of have not a frustration but like a kind of a vision of oh how this could be better and that's where those seeds started to kind of where they were planted and then started to grow and that's where I thought with from the transition from news to fashion I remember the first time I ever photographed a model in my life it was in for the newspaper you set these fashion pages in the Irish newspaper and I the editor told me the photo editor told me you're going to photograph the fashion today first time ever it's 21 i think and uh i got in the car with the model the stylist and whoever else and i drove to this beach in dublin on the bay it was probably like 45 minutes away four hours later he called me he was like where are you i said i'm on the beach doing the fashion and he said you were supposed to do it at the back door of the office of the newspaper i was like no but it's fashion and they were like they were pissed off and i was like so i always had this thing it was like this is what i'm gonna do and no one's gonna sound but the creative freedom i have when i photographed that girl that model i still remember the pictures i was like i can control everything here she's beautiful we can change things and that's where that seed planted you know um i love that where the idea of me photographing a moment and kind of it definitely he wasn't my it was my passionate but it wasn't my um it wasn't what i was going to spend the rest of my life doing yeah you know and i always remember in afghanistan i spending time with this photographer from new york times who was a still today an absolute beast like he is the guy and in that moment i was able to see the difference about the difference between where my career you know was going and what i wanted to do and i was like if you want to i said to myself you want to do this that's what you got to do it wasn't for me you know it wasn't at that time but the battle the the challenges are similar to be really honest like they are similar you're dealing with people you're dealing with access to places to airports to hotels to venues and getting the permission of people and that's kind of similar when you're a news photographer yeah in in in parts you know particularly in the conflict places absolutely access and it's to meet you know the right people and so so it's it's worlds away but there's similar elements

56:18The Gstaad Guy:and challenges and yeah you know i think a lot of the listeners today who are creatives or yeah have a creative side they want to channel or even our photographers in particular yeah voice a concern about this generation and the time they're born into where there are challenges of this time that are unique to this time. I personally think that this is the greatest time to be alive and there's even more opportunity across these categories. But then again, I'm not a photographer. So I'd love to understand from you.

56:58Tony Kelly:Well, you're visual and you're creative, absolutely. I mean, you get it.

57:01The Gstaad Guy:I appreciate that.

57:01Tony Kelly:You do. My friend Alessandro Restore, from the Alessandro Restore in the Puerto Finos, we had dinner with joanna and himself and the band and armani hotel in milano a while ago and he said to me tony everybody talks about the dolce vita he said now is the dolce vita you know which contradicts a little bit what we spoke about i was this nostalgia but we're talking about cinema you know it's very different um i think absolutely agree with you now is the time to be alive now it's the Dolce Vita Alessandro is a very he's quite a deep thinker and he lives the he lives it you know wonderful wonderful guy just amazing I love him and the band and Ben the manager but he really is a deep thinker and the stuff he says to me when he speaks I listen and he said that to me I was like the Dolce Vita is now now is the Dolce Vita he said we talk about the Dolce Vita in the 60s he said my father said he told me his father said in the 60s things weren't great you know there wasn't the the access to wealth or to resources that we have today and i think artistically economically um in every way possible this is a great time to be alive and i think tools we have access to come on my cameras when i start working in newspapers and stuff were like there was a massive difference between the camera of a professional photographer and the tourist yeah i can literally go up to ruitt's photo here in the town and buy myself a setup today and go to work you know two hours and 20 minutes and like the guy who's tourist can can buy the same you know i bought some fancy i've always kept cameras for me i've always been like it's never been my thing but i bought some fancy cameras recently which kind of put me back a little bit the separation but i would say if the luggage doesn't arrive or cameras get go missing I can go to a shop, just buy a camera for whatever,$1 ,000, shoot the story.

59:06Tony Kelly:And Helmut Newton used to always say that. He said, I use a tourist camera. But back then, it was a big difference, you know. But the access to equipment, access to, you know, you can edit videos on your iPhone. Actually, he edits them for you. There's just so much freedom, creative freedom. and so much accessibility to equipment, to platforms, to everything. It is a brilliant time to be a creative. I agree. The key is to have original ideas and go back to what I said. Shoot, create, paint, sing, whatever. Just enough that you love. But there's never a better time. Anyone who's complaining about they don't have this or that, I disagree.

59:48The Gstaad Guy:I agree. I think there's more opportunity than ever to continue to elevate and push so the main ingredient I think is just a desire the desire to actually want to push the boundaries of whatever it is you want to do

1:00:01Tony Kelly:even if it's garbage that someone's creating they're still going to get a hundred people saying they love it so is that a false sense of security? maybe but it's great because I think all artists all humans we need validation we enjoy validation it encourages us and it's healthy a dog that comes up and wants to be petted he wants to be validated and I feel that the validation that people can the encouragement let's say encouragement more so I see stuff online I'm like it's not my style but look there's 4 ,000 people liking it and 300 people commenting my great live the dream you know and I feel that yeah I totally agree with what you said it is a great time to be alive particularly for creatives I'm seeing stuff coming off coming out of you know kids shooting stuff on video I'm like it's amazing

1:00:55The Gstaad Guy:you know on the topic of validation yeah I think imitation yeah can feel like validation to to yeah some who are optimistic can feel offensive to people who are proud of their work I like where you're going yeah I have had many copycats over the years I've seen quite a few some who are direct copycats some who are simply inspired and tell their own thing yeah I try to take the approach of validation no matter what. How do you feel about people who copy your work?

1:01:28Tony Kelly:My wife feels a little different than I do. She's a bit more protective over it than I am. She's laughing. She's here with us, by the way. And she's loving this. She feels she's quite militant, I would say. She will say to me, look, look at this idiot. And I'll be like, babe, it's okay. It's cool. That's what we do, you know, and people want to take inspiration. Where the line is very clear for me, when people steal for commercial usage, when they take my picture and they put a logo on it, that's a different thing. That's not copying. That's just theft. so we take that very seriously and I protect my images because they're my images and I spend a lot of time money in my heart creating them an effort and love additionally when people collect them or collectors they have them on their walls they're not they're not they're not exactly economical let's say because the product has a lot invested into it when they then see some half-wish who stuck a logo across that same picture it puts me in a compromising position So we have to take action on those things.

1:02:48Tony Kelly:But when I see a kid in Russia who's, you know, trying to copy something I did with some high heels and some skis, let's say, or not even a kid, a photographer out there, I take a kind of a lighthearted approach to it. You know, if it's for artistic reasons and it's somebody trying to build something. As I said, Joanna, my wife, she sees it slightly different. But I think what I said earlier on about that transition, that you are no longer looking in magazines or in books, because I used to buy Vogue Paris. I mean, we're talking a long time ago. Vogue Paris, Vogue Italy. There was a great Vogue Italia, Womo Sport was a supplement.

1:03:31Tony Kelly:Bruce Weber and some of those guys. Testino, I think you should be. But it was Bruce Weber. Stephen Mizell used to shoot a lot of it. It was just sports fashion. It was just. so I'd look at those things and then that transition happens where you're not looking at those anymore you're the creator and you if you're creating the stuff and you're the one you're then in that position you have to be grateful that people will take inspiration from it yeah direct copy as I said yeah I've seen a few of them and sometimes we'll send a note just to say you know it's best if you I always say it's best because it's positive and it's discreet It's discreet and it's polite.

1:04:12Tony Kelly:But what can you do? You know what I mean? What can you do? The fake Rolex sold more Rolexes. You know, the fake Ralph Lauren shirts sold more Ralph Lauren shirts.

1:04:23The Gstaad Guy:It's the cost of being a first mover.

1:04:25Tony Kelly:Yeah, it is. Your own little niche. It is. And which brings me on to AI. That in the gallery here in St. Moritz, I had people come in and say, is it real? And I love when they ask that because thanks again to my wife, Joanna, she's really insistent that we always have behind the scenes video. And sometimes the video gets a lot more traction on social media than the actual picture. You know, because we work with stuntmen. We work with, so we have everything to show. And I think the AI is the fake Rolex for me. You know, people, oh God, she did jump over the car. I'm like, yeah, 11 times, here's the video.

1:05:04The Gstaad Guy:So the process is really the art form.

1:05:07Tony Kelly:Yeah. And having the balls to actually go and execute. Because I'm really tense when I'm shooting. Because we had this girl, Leah. She's an Olympic, French Olympic skier. She jumped over that Lamborghini. The Carabinier. And she jumped it 11 times. It was substantial. It was a size, like quite a big jump. And we had a local pro freestyler dig the jump with another guy, Patrick Kohler. And he hit it the first time. And I was going, Jesus, that's a lot of air. because you have to clear the jump on the road and the whole thing, I was clear the car on the road and she did it 11 times. You know, my stomach is tense even though she's comfortable.

1:05:43Tony Kelly:She's still going, she's, you know, no helmet on. She can hit a bump. Something can go wrong. It's my, I'm the one, it's me on the line. But you just learn to work with the best, best possible people so you can navigate those situations. But to go back to what I was saying, when people come in, I'm really proud to show that video. We have it on a massive screen in the gallery. And they're like, is this real? And you're like, you know, and I think the fake really helps to, I don't say validate, but give even more value to what is original and real. You know, the original idea and then the real execution.

1:06:22Tony Kelly:That I'm proud of. I love that.

1:06:23The Gstaad Guy:You know. On this podcast, we always play a game of à la poubelle versus fantastique. I love it. can you share a couple of things that you would throw a la poubelle and a couple of things that you would celebrate to be fantastique um a lot a couple is only the start you can go as many as

1:06:42Tony Kelly:you'd like fantastique would definitely be um people who take time to appreciate waiters cleaners the service people who make our lives i make our holidays in san moritz or in miami wherever as enjoyable as they do I find that's something that's just decency I think I think the La La Poubelle is definitely I see more and more go back to social media of these fakers showing us their handbags and their fake fur coats and that to me is something that's definitely La La Poubelle you know let's get some substance and if you have something to say make have have some substance in it you know i think it's getting better hopefully i think hopefully um you know fantastique what i'd like to see more of is some blue skies up here over the next two weeks because i have a lot of pictures to shoot i mean the history is by your side 300 days of blue skies yeah yes yeah we have to coordinate that with the shoot days and stuff And a fantastic definitely would be the two ladies on the plane, on the wing of the plane, being served their lunch as the pilots are taking their skis off the F-40.

1:08:03Tony Kelly:But I think in general, my fantastique is when I meet people and see people who have respect. And I say respect as in who have time and courtesy for people. and that's something that really stimulates me when I I get great joy when I see people who are decent and I enjoy to see more and in a town like this there's quite a lot of that it's something very old school about up here that there's still values and I think the locals and the Swiss people in general they're very friendly people you know that makes me happy

1:08:36The Gstaad Guy:I agree with that fully aligned

1:08:38Tony Kelly:yeah I need more poubelle no I think you're good are you sure?

1:08:42The Gstaad Guy:yeah the fantastiques are even better

1:08:43Tony Kelly:yeah more pros than cons yeah yeah i probably have a lot of feedback from the handbag lady no it's fine i think they know yeah come on i love them they know but make it more interesting yeah you know we can do more than a handbag yeah you know come on there's more like push yourselves creatively yeah and just dig a little deeper then i see because there's some brilliant influencers that i've seen over the last and they make it interesting but dig deeper so it's more of as opposed to a criticism, like an advice, an artistic advice, if I may, with all due respect. Substance over status. Again, Ireland.

1:09:20Tony Kelly:Ireland. They do it right.

1:09:21The Gstaad Guy:They created it. Yeah. You know, and they've lived off it. They have. I'd love to see more of that online as well. But I think, I think the, the tide's heading in the right direction. Hopefully. I hope so. Yeah, hopefully. Well, Tony, thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure. This is great. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Stardguy podcast. If you're keen to learn more, please follow along by engaging with our social channels on Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, YouTube and Apple podcasts. And we look forward to seeing you next week. Merci beaucoup.

1:09:59The Gstaad Guy:A la prochaine and a big hug from the Stardguy.