YRB Magazine

YRB: Was it always your desire to become a photographer?

Anthony: In a sense, it took me years to call myself a photographer. I started out wanting to make movies. By the time I was 15, I knew that was what I wanted to do. I went abroad, studied cinema with Michelangelo Antonioni and went to USC Film School. I had a deal to make a film when I was 22 and it didn’t work out. I walked away. Then, I basically taught myself photography. I started working in it immediately, in reaction to not getting a movie made. It took me on a six-year journey building a reservoir of clients and eventually shooting for some big brands.

YRB: You have such a passion to excel.

Anthony: I know where it comes from. My mother was an artist and somebody that really had this dream of pursuing her art but she became pregnant at a young age, so she didn’t move to New York and didn’t do the things she wanted to do. She pushed me, said to pursue with passion what moves you. When I got out of college, my father said, “Get a job,” and my mother said, “Build your craft.”

YRB: Despite your incredible music video success, you seem to juggle so much in photography between still, video, commercial and editorial. Why not specialize in one or the other?

Anthony: For me, I just find an interest as long as there is a camera in front of me. My idol growing up was Antonioni and my love of filmmaking was because of him. In the mid-‘90s, when he was trying to make his last movie, I learned about the perspective and the subjective eye and how that translates to any camera, be it 35mm or video, whatever subject or model. It’s all still about having an opinion and creativity.

YRB: When you make videos they truly do seem like mini-films. Just watching them shows you immerse yourself in the music and artist’s message. You’re almost a conduit between the artist, the song and its video translation.

Anthony: You are right in the sense of immersion. I usually listen to the song more times than anybody wants to hear it and then I stop listening to it. I let it boil inside of me, sometimes a day or a week. Sometimes, my ideas come out in an hour. It’s more about understanding that character of the musician.

YRB: You must occasionally have a bit of a struggle with an artist who fears failure, who doesn’t want to expand a video to its limits.

Anthony: People know me. They know that I have a built a career in passionately working with a certain style. If you do that enough times, you build a base of people who love your work people who dislike it. You get fans and you get people who don’t like you. If you try to play to everybody, then you are watering down your own art. I usually get hired because people love the things that I do and want a certain essence that I do. That allows me to be at my strength, and they are honored by what you do. I do it, and do it better than I did it before.

YRB: That seems to differ from the usual process of making a video.

Anthony: The process is, usually record labels sending out songs to directors and picking the kind of person they’d like to have. I won’t engage in it. I usually talk to the artist first and have a one-on-one with them. My work generally comes through relationships with artists, not labels.

YRB: That has to be exciting, to develop those professional relationships and watch an artist develop.

Anthony: There is something beautiful about working with some of these artists. Rihanna and I have done 11 videos, and I cherish [what we have] done. I met her when she was 17; she’s 21 now. She has grown into an absolutely remarkable woman who has an understanding of fashion and a general understanding of life that’s amazing when you realize she came from a very simple life in a small town in Barbados. You don’t have to look far to see who she will become. I grew up watching Madonna and watching these major fashion cultural shifts every time Madonna came out with a new video. It is something like what happened with Audrey Hepburn. There are only one or two of those a generation – Rihanna is one.

YRB: How does MTV and other television channels not regularly showing videos anymore – for years now – affect your craft?

Anthony: MTV isn’t relevant. I will say that to anyone at MTV. They host this video show that isn’t even relevant to the music or the work we do. Those shows are insulting to people. People don’t buy it anymore. They give an award for [2008] Best Video to Britney Spears [for “Piece of Me”]. That is a joke. Everyone in our industry thinks the VMA’s are a joke. If you’re going to honor videos, really do it. Give it to people who deserve it. There are a lot of brilliant guys out there. They don’t have that ability. They only want to honor copycat media. They are pushing this medium and they want to honor the same old people – the stars of MTV. It’s a joke, really.

YRB: How do you respond to those that say videos aren’t relevant?

Anthony: Rihanna has had 200 million views on YouTube. If the labels were selling records that were as popular as the videos I make, they wouldn’t be in trouble. Kids go online and find the videos, the music, find what they like.

YRB: If someone had to sum up your life in a sentence or two, what should they say?

Anthony: I love this [film director Federico] Fellini quote: “There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.”