Rangefinder Magazine, a professional photography publication

Rangefinder Magazine
January 2007

Tony Bonanno by Paul Slaughter
Hooves and Dust

It appears many photographers find their profession by traveling circuitous routes. Tony Bonanno is one of them. In past careers he has been a teacher, a U.S. National Park Ranger and even a special agent for the government. (Tony says, “We won’t go there.” I wonder what type of camera he used then—perhaps a tiny one he stuck in the lapel of his suit jacket—but Tony is not talking.)

Tony grew up in Washington, D.C. His dad taught photography in the army during World War II.

Professionally, his father was a scientist and gemstone expert. “Photography was a major passion for him. As a kid I remember Dad’s darkroom in the basement of our house. There were big enlargers, timers, trays, chemicals, paper and safelights. Dad had a Zeiss Ikon rollfilm camera and Leica IIIfs. You might say I was definitely ‘exposed’ to the world of photography as a youth.”

When Tony was 12, his father began to teach him the basics of photography: how to use a tripod, apertures, shutter speeds, ASA (now ISO) and depth of field. His first camera was a classic Kodak Recomar with a bellows and a rollfilm adapter. As a youth Tony never thought of becoming a photographer; he wanted to be a fighter pilot or perhaps a game warden.

In 1966, Tony received a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from James Madison University in Virginia. He still did not have a photography profession in sight. But he remembers one of his art professors commenting that he had an eye for composition.

After college, he taught high school biology in Virginia and worked as a park ranger in the summers at Shenandoah National Park.

Tony says, “I was very fortunate to be working in a National Park at a time when there were extremely creative and innovative professionals overseeing our programs. They were retired from the fields of natural history, media and photography. They lived in the park with the rangers. Their mission was to support us, mentor us and teach us how to make quality presentations for the public. Two couples, Henry and Millie Heatwole and Hugh and Aggie Crandall, were talented and passionate nature photographers. I spent six summers learning from them.

They inspired me, challenged me, and had an impact on my photographic vision that I did not fully appreciate until years later. Imagine a bunch of young, green park rangers crowding into the little trailer residences of our mentors, discussing the merits and vision of the photographers that we all admired in those days, like Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter. We also debated the technical merits of the latest photo gear—the Nikkormat, Topcon and Miranda camera systems.

“Our ranger crew was extremely competitive, creating slides programs that we would all critique. Everyone was using SLR cameras. I was quite happy with my Leica IIIf with its f/2 Summitar lens that my father had given me. One important priority for us was patrolling the 20 miles to the mailbox to check for those little Kodak yellow boxes.”

At Shenandoah in the summer of 1969, during severe rain and flood conditions, Tony was searching for two missing and overdue hikers. Crossing an overflowing river, Tony lost his footing and his Leica as well. He drove to Washington, D.C., to purchase new camera gear. At Penn Camera, Max Zweig explained the merits of Nikon and Canon cameras. For the princely sum of $180, Tony purchased a Canon FT with a 58mm lens and a Tiltall tripod. He was a happy camper.

In 1970, Tony married an art teacher and attended graduate school in geosciences at Penn State with the assistance of a National Science Foundation grant. After receiving his master’s degree, he and his new wife decided they wanted to be fulltime park rangers. For the next two decades they were stationed at numerous National Parks including Shenandoah, Zion National Park, Blue Ridge Parkway and Grand Canyon. Tony was far too busy being a ranger to think a lot about photography, but he still enjoyed it as a hobby when time permitted. At Zion he met photographer Dewitt Jones, who was on assignment for National Geographic. Tony says, “Those early years as a park ranger influenced my vision, my sense of aesthetics, and gave me a great appreciation for natural light, color, texture, lines and patterns.”

Later in the mid-1980s, Tony was working as the chief ranger at Cape Cod National Seashore. The exquisite beauty of marsh life, wildlife, birdlife and the ever-changing patterns of light and color accompanied by the ocean’s changing moods captivated Tony. He began photographing in earnest with his new Canon A-1 camera, prowling the edges of the marsh at daybreak and sunset in search of good images.

Tony’s professional ethics were strongly influenced early in his career by photographer Harry De Zitter. Tony’s office at the National Seashore issued filming permits for the fashion work Harry was doing on the beaches and historic buildings. Harry was one of the most pleasant pros his staff worked with. Tony became friends with Harry, who nominated him for the Boston chapter of the preeminent photo organization ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers).

In 1988, Tony had his first photographic exhibition, entitled Backyard Landscapes at a Cape Cod Gallery. He even sold a few pieces. His landscape series Natural Lines exhibited at Wenninger Fine Art in Provincetown in 1990. This exhibit was a breakthrough.

Tony received good notices in the Boston Globe. Based on this success, he decided to start a part-time photo business, learning the ropes of commercial work and shooting assignments for local art directors on Cape Cod and in Boston. He immersed himself in reading photo books, and studied the work of photographers Duane Michaels, Arnold Newman, Helmut Newton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and all the top LIFE photographers of the day.

Tony says, “The work of other photographers has had a huge influence on me. The photographs of Eliot Porter combined with passages from Henry David Thoreau in the book In Wilderness Is the Preservation of the World blew me away. A few years later, while on detail at the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Southern Colorado, I came across four people standing next to an old military jeep, studying a map. I stopped to help. An older gentleman who clearly possessed a youthful energy introduced the other members of the party and then himself. His name was Eliot Porter. Years later I was given a book that contained an image from the Dunes taken the very day I met Eliot.”

In 1992 Tony moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is a very different market from Cape Cod. Everyone he met on the street told him they were a photographer or a massage therapist. In Santa Fe, Tony met local members of ASMP who helped him size up the business environment. He started shooting resort properties, local events and whatever assignments he could find, and he showed his work in a local gallery. He found a niche photographing corporate events, which took him to Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. Doing work for Intel, he photographed President Bush and the First Lady and has been New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s official photographer. Tony says, “Marketing commercial work has been a dynamic exercise. The ASMP ‘Find a Photographer’ and Adobe’s Photographers’ Directory have been helpful. Internet portfolios are critical to business success. Potential clients do look at your work. The combination of networking, referrals and the Internet has had a synergistic effect on my business.”

Tony’s Hooves and Dust series is a body of successful work that significantly turned his direction in photography. For a while he had been photographing almost exclusively for clients and very little for himself. A visit to a ranch in Oregon in 2005, living in a cabin, eating with cowboys, and photographing them driving horses produced this body of work. “There was a certain freedom about shooting just for myself that I had not experienced for a long time. The work was also technically challenging. I shot the fast-moving action on foot, at ground level, often in a cloud of dust, with a handheld camera and no tripod. All the lighting was natural, without any supplemental light. I used the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II Digital SLR camera body, with its full-frame, high-resolution sensor (16.7 megapixels) shooting in RAW mode. All work was shot with just one lens, a Canon 70–200mm f/2.8L with Image Stabilizer and a 1.4X tele-extender. To capture the action, I shot wide and cropped the images later for final presentation prints.

The shoot, for me, was about the power, energy, motion and light associated with the wonderful animals and the riders that worked them. The Hooves and Dust series has inspired me to do more personal work.”

Tony uses Canon Digital SLR cameras and lenses exclusively. He prints large images on a Canon iPF5000 17-inch pigment printer and uses an Epson R2400 inkjet printer for smaller prints.

Tony says, “I would never have made it this far had it not been for the help I received from other photographers and graphic professionals. I find that one of the most rewarding aspects of my business is sharing knowledge and experience with other photographers. Mentoring is another way of furthering your philosophy and standards. It’s a win-win for us all.”

View Tony’s work at www.bonanno photo.com. His Hooves and Dust portfolio can be viewed at www.hoovesanddust.com.

Tony resides in Santa Fe and is an active member of the New Mexico chapter of the ASMP.

Paul Slaughter is a world-traveled photographer, writer and ASMP member who lives in Santa Fe, NM. Paul specializes in location, stock and fine art photography and writes articles on travel and photography. A special love of his is jazz. He has an extensive photographic collection of the legends of jazz. You can view portfolios of his work at www. slaughterphoto.com.