With a passion that burns strong for
capturing dramatic moments in sport, California-Based photographer Tim Tadder
talks to Jordan Butters about breaking free of the constraints of shooting from
the sidelines
I GREW UP with a professional sports
photographer for a father. When I was a kid he'd let me stand with him on the
sidelines while he covered the games: it was the coolest thing in the world.
Sometimes he’d let me take the pictures: my passion developed from there. Although
I worked in various areas of the photography industry, including
photojournalism and teaching, I ended up in my father's shoes - shooting sports
from the sidelines of NFL and Major League games.
"In the beginning, I was competing
with amazing photographers and had to find a way to stand out. I got thinking
about ways I would shoot sports if I could control the event, which led to me
building a portfolio of test shots with my vision of sports photography. A year
or two later, I threw in the photojournalism towel and concentrated on my style
of sports photography. I wouldn't say it’s commercial as much as creating
images that capture what makes sport epic, whether that be struggle, strife,
competition, integrity, violence, passion or aggression.
"Most of my client work is campaign
related. I do a lot with beer and soft drinks companies such as Miller High
Life, Bud Light, Coke Zero and Pepsi. My style attracts clients outside of
sport too. I bring drama and intensity to whatever I'm shooting: taking the
most mundane character and introducing a heroic powerful nature.
"The briefs I receive are often either
extremely open or extremely limited. If the brief is too specific it can kind
of hurt; you might not agree it's the best way to communicate the story, but
it's what that client wants. I like a happy medium. Over-direction puts you in
a box, and it's difficult to think outside of it. But if you have zero
direction, you might shoot apples and they're expecting oranges. I like working
with creative people who engage me in creative insight and articulate what
they're seeing. I love it when I'm getting 'it would be cool if' or what do you
think about adding this' during a shoot.
"I take the same approach whether I'm
working with a professional athlete or a model, engaging with them during the
process and showing them the results as we go. With athletes, I find it's
easier for them to get into character when they're re-enacting their profession
rather than static in a studio. The hardest part is getting them to amp up
their performance to a believable level. I recently photographed Sir Chris Hoy
for Gillette's Olympic campaign - we started out slow and I gradually pushed
him to the point where he was in a frenzy; pounding the pedals on his bike and
going crazy. That's the goal: to push them into a believable moment of sport.
Chris pedalling gingerly on the spot isn't going to convey that through a
picture.
"Lighting is a crucial element; it's
another means of communication and I get the best results when I plan in
advance. It's all about control and balance. The light needs to blend with the
scene but yet create separation between the subject and their environment. Each
shot is so different from the next that I tailor the light to whatever the
image requires. Take my boxer shoot, for instance (above left):
I see a boxer as an individual warrior. He
trains, works and fights alone and I interpret that solitude to be a silhouette
-a nameless, faceless person. To show that, I used backlighting and a lot of
focused, but feathered, light to illuminate just enough of the environment to
bring a three-dimensionality to the subject.
