ABOUT
TONY
behind
the lens
Tony Potts is a fashion and fine art photographer and commercial director currently based in his native Sydney, Australia. Tony’s career has taken him around the world, shooting in locations such as London, Paris, Milan, New York, Los Angeles, Bangkok and Mexico.
Tony was born into a famously creative family. His mother, Judy Barraclough, was the face of high-fashion in Australia in the 1940s & 50s, and the star of the catwalk working with the top couturiers in Sydney, London and Paris. She became the house model for the Queen’s dressmakers Edward Molyneux and Norman Hartnell, giving regular showings to the Queen and other senior royals.
Tony’s uncle, David Potts, was one of Australia’s most renowned photojournalists of the 1950s & 60s, working for Time/Life, the Observer, and Picture Post in the UK, Cyprus and Israel before returning to Australia, where he lived out the rest of his fifty year career. His work has been collected by every major art museum in Australia, and was exhibited at the MOMA in NYC. Tony’s brother, Timothy, is the Director of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California.
Tony has spent a lifetime both in front of, and behind, the camera. As a model, he appeared in the editorial pages of almost every Vogue magazine throughout Europe. Working with many of the world’s best fashion photographers — Helmut Newton, Denis Piel, Patrick Demarchelier, Albert Watson, Oliviero Toscani, Norman Parkinson, and other legends — was an experience that greatly influenced Tony’s future work as a photographer.
After his return to Sydney, Tony devoted himself fully to photography, shooting for virtually all of the leading contemporary Australian fashion designers and magazines of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s: Vogue Australia, Vogue Thailand, Vogue Bride, Harpers Bazaar Australia, Cosmopolitan, Cleo, Mode, New Woman, Karen, Inside Sport, Follow Me, and Black & White Magazine, amongst others.
Tony has also shot Advertising campaigns (both TVC and print) for major brands including: Apple, L’Oréal, Pantene, Nivea, numerous Proctor & Gamble products (Garnier, Olay, SK-II, etc.), Unilever (Sunsilk, Dove, Vaseline, etc.), Nescafe, Schick, Ansett Airlines and Club Med, amongst others (see client list).
In tandem with his commercial work, Tony has built an extensive archive of fine art photography that hangs in prestigious private collections in Australia, Europe and the US, and has been exhibited in galleries and art fairs in Milan, London, Paris and Sydney.
Tony’s signature photographic style captures both sophistication and sensuality in unassuming scenarios. He creates compelling, stirring and enduring images that reveal the innate sensuality within us all.
Tony is perhaps best known for his B&W nudes, his fashion photography (particularly his Australian work of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s), as well as a series on Sydney’s Bondi Beach — an important timestamp on the beach culture that has remained quintessential to Australian life. Limited editions of his past and present work, including select vintage prints, are available for purchase.
