Tony Gale is Everywhere!

February 19, 2013

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David J. Carol

©TONY GALE

Tony Gale is an award winning photographer that teaches at Parson the New School for Design and is a serious triathlete. Mr. Gale is also very creative and a smart cat. He has come up with, in my opinion, one of the best personal marketing concepts and executions I've ever seen. He goes to virtually every photo industry event and takes photos of himself with practically everyone attending. Brilliant!!! Here is a short interview with Tony and some examples of these fun and entertaining photos.

1) Tony tell me about how you first got interested in photography and who influenced you the most.

When I was 19 two friends of mine and I drove from my hometown of Bellingham to Seattle, to find Bruce Lee's grave on the 20th anniversary of his death. Several hours later, along the way, we bought a disposable camera to take some pictures. That led to a point and shoot, which led to an SLR, which led to me thinking maybe I can be a photographer...

One of my favorite photographers ever is Alfred Stieglitz, I don't shoot like him at all, but when I see a print of his it blows me away. Some of the stories about the early 20th century photographers really have had an impact, of course I don't know if they are true. Such as hearing that Paul Strand would not eat for a day so he could afford to make a platinum print, that is some serious dedication to craft. Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Arnold Newman, Gertude Käsebier, Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Steichen all did some great things.

2) I remember the first time we met. I yelled across a room at some event, I forget which one, that I had to have a "Tony Gale" photo taken. When did you start doing these "self portrait" pics? I love them!!

I do remember that, I think it was at the PDN party at the PhotoPlus Expo. I think I started around 2009, I had realized that I didn't have photos from a large chunk of my life because I only took photos that I thought were "good" photos, as opposed to fun. Of course plenty of fun photos are good, and plenty of "good" photos aren't.

3) What's a typical day in the life of Tony Gale the hardcore athlete?

Well at typical day might be a seven mile run in the morning and maybe a mile pool swim in the afternoon. It depends on the day, I have to squeeze in cycling too.

4) Look around your home. What needs to be attended to right now, but you keep procrastinating and avoiding?

I really need to put away some laundry, and I have a growing stack of magazines to go through.