Tony Bell
PhotographerMy passion for photography came from my Dad. He was a keen amateur who enjoyed the mechanics and chemistry involved as much as composing the end result.
I was hooked the minute I saw an image appear in the developing tray on what had been seconds before, a blank sheet of photographic paper.
Dad was generous with his time and equipment, loaning me his precious single lens reflex Contaflex and his beautifully engineered twin lens Rolleiflex.
He took time to explain the three essential elements you need when developing the perfect image: time, temperature, and twaddle!
Little did either of us know then what he had started. Then one day I took a camera to a gig, the shots were awful, but I knew then that I wanted to photograph musicians.
Not studio portraits. Live musicians, where you have no control over light, costume, posture or pretty much anything at all.
But first would come commercial shoots, rabbit food, the inside of television tubes, reflective road signs (at night!) and sport.
Technically, the equipment I use today is light years ahead of what I used when I started. The basic principles of exposure, composure and patience have not changed a bit. Nor has the fact that cameras get in the way of what you are seeing.
…and SixtyTwoThings?
For most of my career I’ve taken photographs under my own name. Nowadays I do more than just take photographs. There are websites to build and maintain, interviews to conduct, reviews to write and graphics to design – not to mention collaborations with other creatives. Photography is still centre stage but life is more varied these days and SixtyTwoThings better reflects that.
