Music to His Eyes

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Stone photographer Mitch Tobias has found way to combine his career with his passion for music. Some of his clients are companies any musician would be thrilled to work with: MTV, The Rowland Corporation, A&M Records, and Sony Music.

Already an up-and-coming musician, Tobias began his career as a professional photographer after graduating from the Pasadena Art Center College of Design in 1991. He has pursued a range of subjects and styles, including editorial, advertising, CD packaging, annual reports, and still life. Recently his work has been seen in the SEGA Dreamcast campaign (Foote Cone & Belding) and the Vantive Corporation’s annual report, for which he was a 1999 Mead Annual Report Show winner. His work has also appeared in Communication Arts.

Despite his increasing demand as a photographer, Tobias still pursues his musical career — composing, arranging, and performing. The native Los Angeleno performs live with an eight-piece band in his adopted home of San Francisco where he’s also recently completed an album of original music.

Creativepro.com contributing editor Marty Beaudet chatted with Tobias about his intermingled disciplines of music and photography.

creativepro.com: You’re an accomplished musician in addition to a photographer. Which came first for you, music or photography?

Mitch Tobias: Music has always been a passion of mine. It runs in the family. But I picked up both music and photography at an early age. My dad has a really good eye. He doesn’t do photography professionally, but he wanted me to pick it up.

creativepro.com: What’s your training in photography?

Mitch Tobias: I went to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where I studied under several photo chairmen, including Art Cain, who was really influential to me. He was pretty radical when it came to non-technical approaches. He’d say, “Get out of the studio! Why don’t you shoot that in the street?”

creativepro.com: Were you already making music when you attended the Art Center?

Mitch Tobias: Oh yeah. We played live a lot, even through school. It was always my own stuff, just writing and composing and doing arrangements. That was always my thing. I wasn’t really a session player.

creativepro.com: I’ve noticed some album covers among your work. Is that the majority of your work? What other kind of work do you do?

Mitch Tobias: I did a lot of work for Guitar World magazine before I moved to San Francisco from L.A. two years ago. That led to contacts with record labels, so I moved from editorial to album packaging.

creativepro.com: So you’ve always managed to stay close to the music industry, even with your photography?

Mitch Tobias: Yeah. It wasn’t planned, actually. I thought I was going to be a fashion photographer. But then I got some pretty good doses of reality from some alum who would come and visit the school. I realized that when I got out of school I couldn’t expect that everyone was going to want me for my own style. I learned quickly that I needed to be willing to do anything.

So I started by doing some ad work for a guitar amplifier company called Soldano. That was published in Guitar World. From there I got work with the magazine and it kind of snowballed. I had no idea that Johnny Rotten would be spinning in my lens some day.

creativepro.com: You have a Web site for you music, but you don’t seem to have a personal site for your photography yet.

Mitch Tobias: That’ll be up in January at www.mitchtobias.com.

creativepro.com: Are the images you have at the Stone site the result of assigned work or were they your own creations?

Mitch Tobias: They liked a lot of the stuff in my portfolio but they wanted me to shoot some material specifically for them. I came up with a telecommunications-themed concept and pitched it to them. They ended up taking a pretty good percentage of what I shot. Once they liked that, they went back into [my portfolio] and took some other miscellaneous things I had no idea they’d be interested in. There have been times when I’ve collaborated with Tom Devine, such as the slot machine fruit images.

creativepro.com: How would you characterize your personal style of photography?

Mitch Tobias: I usually gravitate toward simplicity — lots of breathing room. I love shooting people; that’s my main thing. I do a fair amount of product work — still life — as well, especially food. Oftentimes that work is very similar to they way I shoot people — monochromatic.

creativepro.com: Your work seems to evoke a mood rather than to capture one. Is that an accurate assessment?

Mitch Tobias: Yeah, in my commercial work, that’s true. I also do a lot of travel work that is in a more documentary style. But that work is not among the Stone collection.

creativepro.com: You’ve obviously done some digital enhancement with some of your images. How much of a role does digital enhancement play in your photography in general?

Mitch Tobias: Well, I’ve only been doing that for about a year now. Actually, I rarely use it. I do digital montages for practical purposes, to save time. But I don’t want to abuse it and have it replace the moods and concepts I can accomplish with film already.

creativepro.com: What kind of direction do you think your photography will take in the future?

Mitch Tobias: Really just getting into personalities, shooting people.

creativepro.com: Do you plan to continue pursuing your music and your photography simultaneously?

Mitch Tobias: Oh yeah. I have so far and it’s worked. I just released an album called “Chronic Bliss” and I’m writing material for a second album. But I’ve been really busy shooting during the past year. I need to take a break from one or the other from time to time and it really helps.

Contact info: [email protected]

 

  • anonymous says:

    …to Comunication Arts is <https://www.commarts.com&gt;

    Following the link in the article leads you to Computer Associates.

  • anonymous says:

    Good article, interesting and honest photographer

  • anonymous says:

    Not really a very interesting article. Not sure I see any controversy here

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