Tony Donaldson

Photographer (Still) and Cinematographer

Santa Monica, California

Member Since:
May 2012

Last online:
> 2 weeks ago

Invites sent:
14

About Tony

Professional photographer, specializing in people, sports, and vehicles. 20+ years experience, from editorial to PR to advertising. I'm ready for every one of Murphy's laws on a shoot. I'm a very good collaborator, keeping a cool head under pressure and love to work with other creatives to come up with solutions and great ideas on set. I shoot personalities for magazines and the occasional amazing headshot.

Check my work at . Very professional, creative, and fun to work with. I'm currently looking for new work, especially love creating key art (e.g. one-sheets). Also working as DP on a series of interviews for a technology company at the moment.

I'm an experienced drone owner/operator, with experience flying a variety of platforms. I also have a blimp and can shoot set stills, and a recording setup for audio.

Unique traits: Highly creative problem solver, I can be a modern-day MacGyver when necessary. I think quickly on my feet, always deliver and am fun and professional. People love working with me, you will, too! ***ALSO AN EXPERIENCED DRONE OPERATOR***

Gender:
Male

Badges

Photos

I love creating eye-catching key art, whether for movie posters or for any client that needs to have the most amazing image.

I've been working with the Special Olympics of Southern California for a couple of years now, shooting their events. It's the events I love to shoot; the athletes, families and everyone involved are truly loving and amazing people.

They do fundraising events, and I've photographed several of those. I thought it might be beneficial, not to mention fun, to help them take their promotional artwork up a notch for an upcoming event. We talked about doing something epic for the Polar Plunge, where people (often college students) raise money by getting donations when they jump into cold water in the winter time. It's Southern California, so the water is rarely freezing (though at the Big Bear Lake event it can be pretty cold).

I wanted to do something that was really eye-catching to encourage more people to want to have fun and raise even more money.

Since a lot of people who participate in this event wear costumes as part of the fun, we chose a superhero theme. I ended up buying some Halloween costumes for two of the three models, the third had her own. I didn't need anyone to get wet, so I found a great mountain lake image by a talented photographer named Stewart Baird (www.stewartbaird.com) in New Zealand and he was kind enough to let us use it.

Then I could concentrate on photographing each of our models individually and get the best performance out of them. That also helped because from a timing standpoint, they were all available at different times. I needed a space to photograph them, and friends let me use their back yard. Of course, this meant shooting in different lighting conditions throughout the day. I'm always prepared and used some technology to aid in making the images I needed to deliver the goods.
The resulting images were combined in Photoshop and make for a very dynamic image, don't you think? People are already raving about it, and because of the technology I used, it will be featured in an upcoming blog on http://blog.pocketwizard.com/ site.

Photograph of Martin Aparijo, Bill Allen and Eddie Fiola. ©Tony Donaldson/tdphoto.com All Rights Reserved

Bill Allen, for his book "My Rad Career", a tell-all book about a Hollywood actor who was best friends with Brandon Lee, on- and off-screen romances and more. I photographed him on a replica of the bike he rode in the 1986 coming-of-age BMX movie Rad in his stunt double's back yard.

Videos

Courtenay Semel Curve Magazine Photo Shoot Behind-the-scenes

Clementine Ford photo shoot - Behind The Scenes photo shoot

Timothy Michael Wynn Creates Amazing Content Using Intel Technology

Credits

Rad: Behind the Scenes (2014)
Voice-over by tdphoto.com Producer
Slingshot (2014)
Documentary by White Dwarf Productions Additional Camera
Certainty (2008)
Film (short) by Dan Jackson Consultant
Begging for Change (2006)
Film (short) by JT Tepnapa Cinematographer
They Are Among Us (2004)
Film by Jeffrey Obrow Still Photographer
Man Made (2002)
Film (short) by Deborah Ward Still Photographer
The Modern Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1998)
Film by Adam Weissman Still Photographer