Ahead of the State Library of New South Wales’ upcoming exhibitionWhat A Life! Rock Photography By Tony Mott, a month ago we asked Mott to name his five favourite artists to photograph.
He replied with Chrissy Amphlett, The Rolling Stones, Tex Perkins, Sarah McLachlan and You Am I. However, speaking just prior to the exhibition’s opening weekend, Mott is having second thoughts.
“It’s forever changing,” he says. “Picking the top five is always randomly difficult. But I’ve got a new book that comes out with the exhibition, which is called Alphabet A-Z: Rock’N’Roll Photography. There’s over a thousand bands and artists in there, but [for] the first section I picked my top ten photos. And I picked them not necessarily for the photo, but also who they are.”
In order of preference, this list consists of U2’s Bono, Amphlett, Peter Garrett, Mick Jagger, Kurt Cobain, Björk, Michael Hutchence, John Lydon, Keith Richards and Iggy Pop. They’re all iconic figures, but Amphlett is especially significant for Mott. Along with being a unique artist and powerful performer, Amphlett and her Divinyls played a pivotal role in launching his photography career.
“I was far from being a professional photographer,” Mott says. “I was just purely a passionate music fan, and it was in the early ’80s when Sydney had the greatest rock’n’roll scene in the world. You could go and see a great band seven nights a week in any suburb.
“The Divinyls had a residency – they played every Monday night at the Piccadilly Hotel in Kings Cross. One night through a drunken haze, as an amateur photographer, I thought, ‘Jeez, it must be bloody hard to photograph something like that.’ So the following week I took my camera along and did so every Monday night for about five months until I developed some level of competence.”
Thanks to a combination of opportune timing and good luck, just when Mott started feeling confident, Divinyls’ manager came to speak to him. “He said, ‘Oh, can we have a look?’ And they used one and it became a tour poster and it began a career in rock’n’roll photography.”
Prior to getting this invaluable exposure, Mott’s motivations were fairly modest. “It was pure pleasure. I was a huge music fan, so I used to go and see bands all the time anyway. An art student friend taught me basic black-and-white processing and printing, and from that the two hobbies and passions combined.”
After the sale of the Amphlett photograph, Mott quickly rose to become one of Australia’s most prominent rock photographers. His working relationship with The Rolling Stones started on Jagger’s 1988 solo tour. Mott subsequently photographed four Stones tours, twice as the official photographer. Given there are so many famous images of the Stones already available, you can imagine the pressure would have been enhanced. However, this was not the case.
“I think almost the more famous the artist, the easier your job becomes. If I produced an ordinary photo of Mick Jagger, it’s already got an impact because it’s Mick Jagger. I’ve only ever done one portrait of the Stones. It was quite amusing, because they all just stood there in sunglasses and after about three minutes I said, ‘Maybe a shot without the sunglasses?’ And there was just a stony silence. It was a tour T-shirt, and as proud as I am of it, there’s nothing particularly special about it.
“The live Stones photos, on the other hand, I am completely proud of. But also, they weren’t that difficult to shoot, insomuch as it is Keith [Richards] in front of you being Keith, so it’s pretty special to start with.”
Throughout a career that has seen him work with everyone from Slipknot to 5 Seconds Of Summer, Mott has taken time to learn about each artist’s music before conceptualising a shoot. By this token, his favourite photo subjects aren’t united by a shared quality.
“You have to treat each one individually,” he says. “Let’s do two extreme examples. Marilyn Manson – I set up a really crazy canvas and I’ve got dead roses as a prop. Marilyn walks into the room, introduces himself as Brian, which is sort of disconcerting, then I show him the set-up. He says, ‘Very good. That’s great,’ and he’s got a little carrier with contact lenses of different colours, then he sits down. I’ve got beautiful light, got the canvas, and the image is there – I’d have to be a complete imbecile not to get a great shot. He’s totally professional, obliging and he’s comfortable in front of the camera.
“The complete opposite – I did a Sarah McLachlan portrait for an album cover. Sarah had sold 30 million records, been around for a while, so she’s quite experienced, [but] unbelievably uncomfortable in front of a camera. It’s not a pleasure for her at all, and that took much more work on my behalf. So I had dinner with her, we talked about music – she couldn’t be a nicer person. Not 100 per cent comfortable in front of a camera, but luckily there was plenty of time. So by the time I get to do the shoot I’m not a complete stranger.
“I was having a joke with her, telling her I’m going to shoot her in the toilet, but the toilet was actually the State Theatre and it’s the Butterfly Room – one of the most beautiful rooms in Sydney. And when we actually shot it, as much as she was still quite shy, finally I was happy with the results.”
What A Life! Rock Photography By Tony Mott runsSaturday October 17 – Sunday February 7at theState Library of New South Wales.
