Interview by Mark Noble
This instalment of our FIRSTS series with media guys in the BMX game is with none other than Fat Tony. Fat has been living the dream and changing his game for a good deal of years now, and shows no sign of letting up. I distinctly recall his package of photos with Terry Adams landing on my old desk back in the old magazine days, and we just knew we had to blow out the article as big as possible – the selection of images with Terry were definitely not your typical set of photos, and it was one of the most photogenic articles we ran back in the heydays of the mag. Shortly after that, he started working full-time at Ride BMX in Southern California and the rest is history – “I started learning to shoot proper photos around 2004, and started getting published in 2005. Then I started working at Ride in June 2006.”
So what is Fat Tony up to now? “Nowadays I am working for myself full time. I do a lot of video production for Alli Sports. I am also the BMX team manager for Freegun Underwear in the US, so I do photos and videos for them. Most of my photo work these days comes from contests. For example: I’ll go to X Games and shoot for Fox, Monster, Mongoose, and DC Shoes so they all have photos for their web sites and social networks, then I’ll sell individual photos from the event to brands like DK and Specialized for catalogs, ads, etc. And I am also starting to announce contests and demos… on camera and microphone stuff.”
Busy times indeed. Let’s find out how he started in all this, and rewind the clock with Fat’s own FIRSTS.