Treats! Magazine Issue Twelve | Page 62

GET TAKEN AWAY BY TONY KELLY Every Stormtrooper dreams of relaxing poolside with a amazing fit. “What entertains me is humor, and when humor beautiful nude woman. Or so one would imagine after looking can cross with female nudes, it’s a refreshing result.” Kelly at one particular image shot by photographer Tony Kelly. In it, had been so bored with most nude photography. “They just a white-armored minion of Darth Vader romantically rests his put this girl against a white wall,” he groans. “I wanted to do arm around the waist of a tall, high-heeled model as the two something lively, something different.” Taken! is the product stare into the bright blue horizon, surveying their city below. of Kelly’s efforts. “The book features my sense of humor, my It’s this combination of splashy color, quirky sense of humor, signature twist,” he says. “Like a lemon in a martini.” and unabashed sex appeal that makes Tony Kelly’s latest Taken!, released in winter 2016, features both archival book, Taken!, a celebration of pleasure in all of its forms. and new work shot specifically for the book. It’s a summery, Born in Dublin, Kelly actually began as a photojournalist energetic antidote to cold weather blahs (especially since with the United Kingdom’s Independent Newspaper Group. one of his models for Taken! is sun goddess Charlotte His assignments took him to cover heavy subjects like the McKinney) with polished yet subversive images in devastating civil war in Rwanda and the war in Afghanistan. motifs of travel, luxury relaxation, and lust peppering its It was a life that, according to the photographer’s management pages. In the book, one model lies nude on a pizza float company Copious, made Kelly unafraid of “emotions or in a vibrant aqua swimming pool, knees tilted ever so flesh.” After observing such darkness, it’s coquettishly. Another leans powerfully in no surprise Kelly switched his focus to the doorway of an airplane, a backdrop of something a little lighter, like fashion and black highlighting her slim figure bronzed celebrity photography. from the sun. One more lies facedown on a Which brings us to today. Kelly’s clients towel, a shadow of an airplane coming in for have included not just publications like a landing on her bare back just above a pert, Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, and treats!, but round derrière. “It’s about having fun,” Kelly brands like BMW, Steve Madden, and Custo says. “It’s about enjoyment.” Barcelona. These days, he does mostly fine art In Kelly’s luxury dreamscape, you’d be photography, some of which is displayed on happy just to be there for a moment, ecstatic his website Tony Kelly World, but his vibrant to live there for the rest of your life. His style is ever present. “The first thing I look for photography is the kind of work that makes in an image is whether or not it entertains me,” you want to meet the man and shake his © TAKEN! ENTERTAINING NUDES Kelly says. So when he was asked to do a book hand, then also hate yourself for not having BY TONY K ELLY, PUBLISHED BY of “entertaining nudes” for teNeues, it was an TENEUES, $ 65, WWW.TENEUES.COM thought of it first. 62 treatsmagazine.com RESERVED. WORDS ELYSSA GOODMAN