Tony Sweet is one of my all time personal favourite photographers and he has been a huge inspiration for me when it comes to image design. When you view his images you will notice that each one of them are meticulously composed with careful attention to detail.

I have been fortunate enough to be able attend two of Tony’s online photography classes a couple of years ago: Image Design: Revealing Your Personal Vision and Fine Art Flower Photography which he still teaches over at BetterPhoto.com and I can highly recommend both of these two courses. Tony’s teaching style is straight to the point, yet very caring and encouraging all while he shares a wealth of knowledge with his students.

I’m very grateful that Tony was kind enough to take the time for this interview in between conducting on location workshops, teaching online photography classes, writing magazine articles and running his general nature photography business!

So, get yourself a good cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy this in depth interview with Master Photographer Tony Sweet.

After 20 years as a professional jazz artist, Tony Sweet changed careers and directed his creative juices towards nature photography. Tony is a ‘Nikon Legend Behind the Lens’, a member of ‘Team Nik’ (NikSoftware) and a ‘Lensbaby Guru’. His fine art prints are exhibited in private and corporate collections throughout the United States, and he is represented by The Getty Picture Agency. Today, Tony’s work is published on greeting cards, calendars, post cards, posters, annual reports, catalogs and various electronic mediums.

1. Tony, first of all thank you very much for taking the time for this interview! For those who might not know you, could you describe your style of photography and perhaps also briefly touch on the moment when you first realised you would make photography a career path?

It’s very difficult for one to describe ones own style of photography. In general, I look for color and graphic interest in most cases, however I’ve recently began looking for more sparse subjects for black and white renderings. We are all in a constant state of flux in any creative endeavor. Despite how people love to pigeon hole photographers styles, there really is only two kinds of photography: good and bad. Initially, I began photographing musicians in night clubs and portraits in my house in Cincinnati. When my first mentor, Tony Gayhart, showed me a nature slide, I decided immediately to pursue this as a career path. I also immediately swapped all of my fast, low light glass for lenses better suited for nature photography (20mm, 35-70mm, 80-200mm, and 105mm macro).

2. You have referred to Pat O’Hara and Tony Gayhart as your mentors and influence, but if you look back in the history of photography what other photographer’s work do you admire and why?

When getting started, I read all the books by John Shaw, Galen Rowell, Rod Planck, Larry West, John Netherton, Jim Zuckerman, Freeman Patterson, and Pat O’hara. I just read everything that I could get my hands on. The styles that appealed to my innate sense of design and photographic viscera were Freeman’s and Pat’s. After years of learning from reading the aforementioned authors to get a firm foundation, I began gravitating to the more impressionist, non representational photography, exemplified by Freeman, Pat and others.

3. A photographer’s day and week can be long! I know that you are often up extremely early, work through the day and often also shoot again around sunset. How do you manage your shooting time, admin work and personal life and get some rest at the same time?

Fortunately, I love every aspect of this business now. Interestingly, digital photography and software expertise has grown together and have inextricably merged to where some software expertise is essential in modern photography. Time management is more a function of how facile one is on the computer and in various software. The faster one can get through image editing and optimization, the better. I know what and where I like to photograph, so I’m not guessing as much and, therefore more effectively managing my shooting time, especially before and after workshops. I also can get by with little sleep, which has it’s drawbacks, but does enable me to get a lot done. Personal life?? Sure, I try to play music once a week with friends when home. I also try to get in a few poker games a year with old friends. Sue and I work and travel together. [Note: Tony's better half Sue aka Susan Milestone is an equally amazing nature photographer with some incredible work as well].

4. As a teacher and instructor you are known to be ‘positive, enthusiastic, generous, encouraging, approachable and energetic’. What motivates you to teach photography as passionately as you do?

Quite simply, I love sharing information and like working with people. As I think back on my life, I’ve always been a teacher, regardless of profession (musician, magician, photographer).

5. Can you talk a little bit about how you challenge yourself creatively and how you choose your subjects (or do they choose you)?

Without getting too abstract, I don’t really challenge myself, per se, but function in the moment, not unlike playing jazz music. I rely on my subconscious to perceive a subject area. Once that happens, I look a bit closer for specific subjects. My challenge is keeping up on creative software use by practicing as often as I can.

6. A great deal of your work is made on the East Coast of the US and is often somewhat more intimate nature and landscape images. However you have recently also been shooting more grand landscapes in areas like the Badlands and I know you have also recently completed another long road trip. How do you feel about photographing in new locations versus much more familiar locations to you like the Smokies for example? And do you approach the grand landscapes differently than the more intimate landscapes?

It takes a while to get past the snap shot stage at new locations and to be able to move to the more personal and more abstract stage. This is why I love revisiting the same locations year after year, not to get the same shots, but to shoot deeper and deeper, getting images that were unattainable on initial visits. When first visiting a new site, I go to the visitor’s center to look at books and post cards to see what’s there and get to locations at pre dawn and/or late afternoon for the after glow, like everyone else. The more we return to an area, the more and deeper we “see.”

7. You have embraced HDR photography and even produced an instructional DVD on the subject. You tend to lean up against the more ‘super real’ images. What captivates you about HDR and do you see a commercial market for it?

HDR is not new, being around since about 1937, but it’s new to the general photographic world. And the world has been flooded with a lot of HDR images, good and bad. I find that HDR is essential to get some scenes to work and can be another way to interpret a scene in a new, fresh way. Commercial market? Many video games have HDR style backdrops, architectural photographers use HDR (paying careful attention to processing the scene to record it as it is), stock photography (although the super real look is not a favorite, yet), and of course for book and article illustrations.

8. We all get stuck in a creative rut sometimes. What advice can you give to someone who is lacking inspiration and needs to get their creative juices flowing again?

• Go to a new place
• Use a Lensbaby
• Try HDR, even on a single image!
• Try camera movement / multiple exposures
• Use a fisheye lens

9. I think it’s fair to say you have been successful in the stock photography market. How important is stock photography to your business today and what’s your thoughts on the emerging microstock photography market?

For snap shot life style photography, stock will remain viable for a time, but it’s on the way to a whole new paradigm. The younger generation are populating the stock agencies and with that comes the younger approach. The Getty stock agency is trolling for images and may have purchased at least a part of Flickr! So, anyone who adequately key words their images on Flickr has a chance of being approached for an image sale by Getty. However, I wouldn’t get my hopes up as stock prices have plummeted in recent years to the point of no longer being a substantial part of our income, dwindling more each year.

10. How about fine art prints? I know you have recently purchased an Epson 7900 printer, do you produce a lot of fine art prints? Are fine art prints an important part of your business? Are you represented by any art galleries? Do you work with interior designers?

Our business plan is to enter the print market in the coming year. We have a couple of print agents and interior designers we have worked with and will be taking portfolios around to galleries looking for representation during our winter break, in addition to limited web sales.

11. To me some of your stock photography images could as well be fine art prints. How do you make the distinction between a stock image and a fine art image, or do you also offer fine art prints of your stock images? Is any of your fine art prints offered in limited editions?

I’m not sure what fine art is, but I do a little research for stock and noticed the more abstract, movement / blur images and extreme macros / conceptual images are viable. These types of images can be seen as being “fine art.” In general, I just send in what I like and let the agency pick what they like. But, please remember that for a great many photographers, stock is no longer a viable source of income.

12. Finally, what was the most recent photography book you bought for yourself?

I buy photography books all the time, the most recent being, “Badlands of the High Plains” by Chuck Haney.

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Tony Sweet teaches several online classes at BetterPhoto.com and conducts his “Visual Artistry” photography and digital printing workshops from March through October throughout the continental United States and Canada.

Tony has also produced several really excellent books and DVDs which can be purchased from the store on his website or at Amazon.com.

I’m also very excited to announce here on Photography 24/7 that Tony Sweet has just released a new DVD titled “Visual Artistry: The Art of Pre-Visualizing in Modern Digital Photography” (it’s literally being pressed as this interview goes live).

Shot in the springtime, Tony works in a variety of locations from historic downtown Charleston and Drayton Hall, to the magical landscapes of Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. Visual Artistry is filled with compositional techniques, tips and tricks from Tony s many years as a professional photographer and workshop leader.

You can purchase the new DVD directly from Tony Sweet’s website or at Amazon.com.

I own all of Tony’s DVDs and have watched them several times and find them a good source of photographic inspiration each time, so check them out if they are not already in your DVD library.

You can watch a small video in clip from Tony’s Visual Literacy DVD in this previous post: Tony Sweet Nature Portfolio.

If you liked this article, you may also like these:

• Hear It From the Man Himself
• Chasing Reflections by Eli Reinholdtsen
• The Magic of Black and White