Today we’d like to introduce you to Anton Watts.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Anton. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My grandfather gave me his old Ricoh Singlex Tls with a beautiful 50mm 1.4 lenses when I was 14 years old. Although drawing was my thing and what I thought was the career path I was taking this was not the case. As soon as I took hold of that camera I couldn’t put it down. At the age of 16, I started a part-time commercial photography course, I spent half the time at college and the other half printing photos and a one-hour minilab located in the city of Melbourne, Australia.
After completing College I landed a full-time assistant position at and one of the main catalogue studios where I had all sorts of experience, anything from assisting on shoots that were still life, room sets and a lot of fashion. I was there for 18 months. This was in the late 90’s where everything was shot on film and tested on Polaroid, Most of it was also shot on transparency, It was a brilliant grounding because technically you had to be dead on with exposure and also color temperature, a lot more time was taken, we’d run tests and wait for the film to come back before we would move forward on certain shoots.
In 1997 I moved to London to pursue my love for fashion photography, After a lot of knocking on doors, hounding photo agents and of course sweeping studio floors and making coffees for 35 quid a day I finally got a break. Mind you, this took almost two years!! Before I knew it I was working on publications such as Paris Vogue with the likes of supermodels such as Kate Moss and Cindy Crawford with some of the most leading fashion photographers in the world.
At the time I was testing with model agencies when I could for my own portfolio and was shopping my portfolio around to magazines, one of which was the famous British Magazine called “CAR” , Although it wasn’t a fashion magazine they would often shoot stories with cars and people so given I had always had a love for cars I thought that the combination might be interesting and great for my portfolio, Unbeknown to me at the time this was about to launch me into the world of car advertising at the highest level in the following years. At the time I was 23 years old and happy to be shooting anything that could give me experience.
Most of the car shooters at the time were shooting on transparency but because I had been assisting in fashion I was shooting everything on color negative, having processed in C41 and then working with a guy hand printing, It was an amazing time because the printer I worked with also printed for photographers that were shooting for magazines such as Vogue, W, etc.I’d often be in there and would be seeing Prints come out for huge fashion editorials, it was so inspiring and definitely opened my mind as to how I approached my own shoots
The lab was a private lab in the bottom of a mews building In Marylebone London and you got down into it via a very tight spiral staircase. It was amazing to see what could be done before we all had access to photoshop, The guys at this level were very few and far between. Next thing I get a call from a car magazine asking me if I’d like to fly to Germany to shoot a new Jeep, I honestly couldn’t believe it!! “you’re going to fly me to Germany for a shoot”?? ahhh….. yeah, sure!!
Before I knew it I was getting calls that were like, “we have a shoot driving a Ferrari 550 Maranello from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, are you interested”? There were multiple trips to the US, Japan, China, Europe, Africa and before I knew it I had a portfolio that was full of cars and people. One of the things I enjoy the most is the access to secret cars and places, places that all the money in the world couldn’t get you into because it invites only.
After 10 years in London, I had shot quite a lot of advertising and was traveling to LA on a regular basis. LA has a huge car industry and obviously a huge entertainment industry. A lot of my shoots now are generally based Downtown LA for urban city backgrounds, Coastal, Malibu and The Hollywood Hills where there are multiple choices for amazing homes to put a car in front of…
I still travel regularly to Europe as well, Barcelona is pretty much the LA of Europe for shooting as it’s set up really well for production and just like LA offers up, City, coastal and mountain locations. Some of the brands I shoot with are Tesla, BMW, Jaguar, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Hyundai, Cadillac, Volvo, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, Ford and KIA.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road hasn’t been too bumpy. Just a lot of time and hard hours as an assistant and a lot of networking to meet the right people along the way, that’s the hardest part, meeting the right people that are willing to give you a chance and open that door.
I think the one thing that people are not aware of is the time, the years that are put in to get to the point where Clients/Agencies will trust you to deliver.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I specialize in Car Advertising photography that incorporates lifestyle. Shooting talent with Cars, The thing that sets me apart is that I shoot both cars and people at a very high quality and generally Car shooters find it hard to do both.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Yes indeed! LA is an amazing city with tons of opportunity and its set up perfectly for the commercial photography business.
Contact Info:
- Website: antonwatts.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: antonwatts
- Twitter: antonwatts
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