I had a great conversation with an art director while I was working on a Coke project last week in Chicago. We talked about new media and social networking. He made a great point that I think it should resonate with visual communicators. In so many words, and most likely because he was tired of getting tweets and facebook updates, about the great adventures of certain photographers, he suggested we as visual communicators, put aside the twittering, facebooking, and all the other distractions and concentrate on making kick ass images. How freaking true. I have always said photographers need to make photographs. Pretty simple concept but lately it seems a lot of photographers are doing more social networking than making better pictures. So I’m going to, heed his wisdom and shut up, make better pictures, and let my images speak to my strength as a visual communicator. With that said, I’d love to learn more about photographers that have visual blogs of their struggle to make more powerful images. More image making, less talk.
Shut Up and Make Better Pictures
26
Oct
ilove2photo
October 26, 2009 at 12:59 PM
nice, turned out epic.
Kevin Halliburton
October 26, 2009 at 1:29 PM
Right up front, I’m not an image buyer, I’m an image creator so weigh my request accordingly but I for one hope you don’t take that advice to an extreme. It’s probably hard to gauge how much it contributes to your bottom line but your interaction in the social media is something I’ve gleaned a lot from. I would sorely miss your experienced voice as much as the powerful imagery that attracted me to your blog in the first place.
Tim Tadder
October 26, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Hi Kevin,
I mean no disrespect to the wonderful bloggers and tweeters that provide useful and powerful information via social networks. I am simply stating that I, myself, and maybe others need to get away from the distractions of social networking and focus on image making. I find staying on top of SN takes away from my image making time (and maybe others as well). I want to be respected for my images and their power not by the numbers of people following my blog or my tweets…Just maybe trying to get back to the pre twitter facebook time when we worked on creating stronger images to gain attention and clients…Again, this is me telling myself to Shut up and make better images. Sorry to have not been more clear…
Rob Hammer
October 26, 2009 at 5:47 PM
Tim,
I couldn’t agree and disagree with you more. Twitter especially annoys the hell out of me. I can’t stand when people tweet about ” I am in a good mood this morning” or “Going to the store to get some bread” .Who gives a shit? Unfortunately, for some people who aren’t as established as they would like to be, the SN sites are a valuable resource. And some people see it as a good vehicle to spread their name. I think blogging is a great thing, and am almost ashamed that I joined facebook not long ago. Funny enough, it might have led to an assignment. On the other hand, I agree it is a huge distraction and has definitely taken time away from shooting. My goal is to shoot EVERY day even if it is a personal project. I want to be a better photographer today then I was yesterday and that doesn’t come from SN, it comes from shooting/failing, shooting/failing, ……. Anyway, thanks for the post. It made me realize that I too, should shut up and make better pictures. Keep up the good work. Your images are very inspiring to me.
Kevin Halliburton
October 26, 2009 at 9:03 PM
No worries Tim, I totally got what you were saying and didn’t read any disrespect into it at all. It’s an encouragement that I could take more to heart myself. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to go away on me totally. You’ve got to put your clients and personal growth first but you’ve also gained the powerful position of contributing to the personal growth of others, myself included. I don’t think a man can ever sacrifice a bit of himself to make someone else a little better without growing exponentially himself. Your images are plenty powerful but so is your voice. Ah-pree-shate-cha!
Tim Tadder
October 26, 2009 at 10:06 PM
Hi Rob,
I believe in the power of SN to spread a message too. I agree it is a vital tool. I just want to remind people myself included that we, as visual communicators, need to communicate visually. Lets not get away from what we are, people that speak through images. Maybe we should develop a SN based upon strictly visuals. Instead of tweeting nonsense, maybe we can develop a SN based on sick visuals that inspired ands speak volumes more than tweets and FB updates, a picture is worth a 1000 words right?
Kevin Halliburton
October 27, 2009 at 3:58 PM
AMEN! Which is precisely why I follow you and Rob both on flickr… though certain people could post more content ya know(grin).
As for twitter, I couldn’t agree more. That whole idea is kind of lost on me. I still don’t know what this keyboard on my phone is for.
Matthew
October 29, 2009 at 2:50 PM
Tim,
Glad you said it – somebody had to. Cause trust me, I’ve been thinkin’ it.
Rob Hammer
October 31, 2009 at 9:24 AM
that sounds like a great idea. probably a million dollar idea.
Thanks Tim
Sam Robles
November 1, 2009 at 7:39 PM
True!
Jeremiah
November 10, 2009 at 1:51 PM
Tim,
I understand the premise of which your friend was speaking. However, I hope this only means cutting out the social media that does, in fact, only deal with the networking aspect. As a newcomer to your astounding site and work, I would relish every word you may speak on what you are doing, specifically, how you are doing it. So I guess what I am trying to say is, even ask, please don’t stop using social media to enlighten aspiring photographers such as myself on how you do what you do. Maybe just cut out the networking side of this social media giant that is seemingly eating up so much of our lives. I do understand that you didn’t say you would cut your blog out, more so you said you were looking for others, I just wanted to share how grateful I am for blogs like yours, and hope that it would only become more detailed on how you do what you do, with all that extra time post-twit-face cutbacks
Richard
November 17, 2009 at 2:56 AM
Tim,
right on.
that’s sort of a big anti-climax in this context but soon we will be shooting like mad-man and not working on the site. Than more pg’s will join.
Truth needs to be told
And as for visual blogs; I have started with a friend of mine on the concept of “one image a day”. A new blog where photographers can participate and upload one image a day which will be shown as one long row of images on the front page. Title needs to be given but otherwise descriptive text is optional. We’re running the site at http://www.mysplitsecond.com. the site is up but not finished and for now there’s more time spent in getting the blog working than in shooting images
Richard
—
http://www.mysplitsecond.com
Umesh
November 20, 2009 at 8:25 AM
Hi Tim,
This is a stunning capture! beautiful light, great details… can’t wait to comment on this!! awesome work. Your work is a visual treat for amateur photographer like us.
Keep clicking!
“Shut Up and Make Better Pictures” - Welcome to the blog of photographer Shawn Chamberlin
March 10, 2010 at 11:20 AM
[...] Browsing through the blog of Tim Tadder (one of my favorites), one of his entries entitled “Shut Up and Make Better Pictures“. Briefly, he goes onto saying that photographers, as visual communicators, need to [...]
Zoran Vidanovic
March 27, 2010 at 7:32 PM
Aloha Tim,
Kevin’s discussion with you was enlightening but he is right: your voice is important. Here an example “My dad just emailed me a great little blurb that questioned why photographers spend so much time talking via new media and social networking and less time making pictures. I’ll let you read it yourself below. But it inspired me to continue what I’m doing (making pictures) and to do more and more and more of it … ” [http://www.nineteenowls.com/blog/?p=419]
z