Ryan Alford [00:00:01] Hey, guys, I'm really excited about today's podcast. I sat down with Tim Roller, a professional photographer here in Greenville and our preferred photographer for the Radical company. Tim and I talked about various topics ranging from photography on this day to some of his backstories and what differentiates Tim. We also went to discuss how he thinks about capturing the moments and what happens during photography with his clients. I loved Tim's perspective. I hope you enjoy the conversation too. You can learn a lot from Tim if you're a budding photographer. He is a pool of knowledge related to everything photography. I hope everyone enjoys today's episode. 

Ryan Alford: Hey, guys, this is Ryan Alford. Welcome to the Radical Company podcast. I am super excited to have a good friend and business partner/associate in-house professional photographer, Tim Roller on the show today. It’s amazing to have you on the show today. 

Tim Roller [00:01:24] Great to be here, man. 

Ryan Alford [00:01:26] Well, we're going to get into a lot of topics today. I want to pick Tim's brain on everything from his background to photography to art to Tim's got many talents from jewelry to voiceover to we could go a lot of different angles, but excited to tell Tim's story – how he got into the business, his perspective on where photography is, where those opportunities are to tell an honest moment as he likes to talk about, which I know he will. Tim, please share with our listeners a little bit about you and what got you to this stage. 

Tim Roller [00:02:11] So I've been a musician pretty much my whole life. My dad was a band director. And so every musical instrument that came through the band, I got to play and I wanted to be a drummer. And my dad said, no, you can't be a drummer until you learn to play French horn and you get to be first chair and French horn. And then you'd be first here in the jazz band and trumpet and we'll talk about drums. So he said a drummer isn't a musician, but a musician can be a drummer. So I took that to heart. And probably there's a lot of drummers about ready to throw their sticks at me, but it's the way I did it. So when I got to college, he bought me a drum set and I got a job with the college and I was playing in bars and stuff like that. I had a great time and I got a job at a music company. I was a staff musician, staff songwriter. I loved it. I'm still a playing musician today. I play at church in front of about a thousand people a week and I now play guitar. And then I decided I want to try something else. You get to a certain point and you go, wow, I haven't done this yet. So that's been my life until now. After I was a musician, I went to college and I wanted to be an accounting major, but then I started working with computers.

In 85 I wanted to be a C programmer. And so I quit college and said and learned how to be a C programmer and I got a job with a consulting firm. And a year and a half later I was a partner in the firm and I was a Lozano's programmer, a C programmer, C++ dot net and now things I looked at some job boards just for the fun of it and none of them. Job boards even have that stuff on it, but for almost a decade or less, I was a computer guy and I loved it because it's like a video game. You take all this data and you move it from one place to another and Oracle databases and programs. And that's what I did for a long time. It was the best. But I also had success breeds, traveled and I traveled five, six days a week. I was missing my kids growing up. And I thought, as much as I love this, I have to stop doing that. I need to do something else. And I was writing down three eighty-five here in Greenville and I saw the sign at White Institute of Real Estate that said: “make money. meet new friends, have fun”. I'm like, man, that's for me, I'm ready to do that. So I took a real estate class and got my license and it was not a good experience in my career. The industry is not a good experience. It wasn't for me and my personality. 

Ryan Alford [00:07:15] Do you think it wasn't your personality commercial or wasn't your personality, whether it was homes for people, homes? 

Tim Roller [00:07:22] I hate to say this because homes were the worst and I did that for a year. And we go through all these homes once a month or something like that. And they'd go, “oh, isn't this beautiful? I'd say, “it's a house, has rooms, has lights, it's a house”. So, I sold a couple of houses, but my interest was always in real estate commercials, and I did extremely well. The one thing I like the most about real estate is something I didn't really get to do, which at the time, was analyzing big properties and determining their value. And do the analytics of the real estate to understand the business. And that's what I did. I did a lot of business. Anderson and I worked for one company and when I left that company, I wanted to come to Greenville. When I left the company, my phone didn't start, stop ringing. And then I worked for a firm and they're a great bunch of guys wouldn't disparage them at all. I didn't get out of the business because I didn't like them. I got out of the business in spite of liking them. I wouldn't work for anyone. I wouldn't work as a broker, for anyone else. That's when I left them. I just canceled my license because they're a great bunch of guys. But, as a commission-only person, it's not enough stability. In a small market like Andersen, even though I did lots and lots of business you make a great big check, but you didn't make anything for four months. And also in that big cheque, divided by four minus taxes isn't all that much. I was a photographer in college and they would call me and I was the college photographer, and I just had a real natural knack for it. You follow your gut in life. And if you're about to do something, you're gut saying, don't do it pretty much. Don't do it. If you wake up in a cold sweat, you're having a dream about something you're about to make a decision on. 

Ryan Alford [00:09:38] I've been there. 

Tim Roller [00:09:40] Don't do that. No matter how much you want to. So I had a sense of it. And, the one defining moment as a photographer in college was when I was shooting the president and I said, “why don't you pick up this pen and act like you're about ready to sign an important contract”. And he picked up his green pen. I said, “don't you have a gold one?” And they start going. This is a stupid idea. And I said it's not a stupid idea, pick up the pen and be quiet for a few minutes, and do what I tell you. I said I'm the boss right now, you're not. And he didn't like that. So he did it anyway. And that was the picture they used for five years because it was a good picture. But I didn't know how to pick up a pen and hold it like, “I'm better”. I signed a big contract, but it just came out, so I was at a family function in Cairo over Christmas at the in-laws, and I love my in-laws, but not for five days. 

So I buried myself in a computer and started getting back into photography because I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to draw. But I had a tremor in my hand, and it seems like Parkinson's disease. And I couldn't draw because my hand would shake, especially my right hand. And that's why I like guitar because you have to be real dexterous with your left hand when on guitar. The right hand is just big. So I couldn't draw because my hand shook and it was frustrating, so I thought I guess that's it. But my cousin or my nephew had a camera and he goes, “oh, look how you use light”. And he just gave me, like a 30 second tutorial on photography. And then I got into the computer and started watching these, how-to videos on photography. And specifically, Joe McNally is one of the greatest photographers of all time and he really understands how to light stuff. So that entire week I just watched videos of photographers taking pictures of girls, and the whole family was not happy with me because they walked by. There's a cat with a camera taking pictures of a girl.

Ryan Alford [00:12:21] Yes, I think people have become lawyers on YouTube. I've had a couple of them. Hasn't worked out well. 

Tim Roller [00:12:30] Sometimes I tease people. I learned how to be a photographer on the internet, which is true, but it's not even close to true because you have to pick up the camera, you have to figure it out. You have to start really from the basics. You have to understand that art, all art is a process. And if you don't love the process, you're not going to be successful at art. When I was a songwriter, I haven't written in a long time, so I'm not a songwriter anymore. I loved getting the idea and developing the idea and developing the lyric, and then after the lyric was getting close to done, then I'd find the music for the lyric and then the rest would fall into place. And then after I got the lyrics, then I'd start adding the music because I didn't have a recording studio. And then I start building the song and then you get to the end of the song. It's really not a lot of payoffs. That's the problem with songwriting. To get a song published is very difficult because it's so political. You go into Nashville, you've got to find the right people. And now it's even more difficult because record labels are almost going away. It's all Spotify and listens and whatever. I don't understand at all anymore. So the great thing about photography, you hang a picture on the wall and everybody that walks by it, if it's a good one, they like it. They go, “Oh, that's nice”. But you can't hang a song on a wall. I guess that means I'm sort of validation.

Ryan Alford [00:14:25] We all are on some level. Instagram's created it. Validated me. 

Tim Roller [00:14:36] So I just started to learn how to learn and I learned from the basics. I made some money in real estate and I invested it all in photography gear. I thought I was going to be a high fashion, highly paid, highly motivated photographer as I have been a highly paid, highly motivated, highly compensated real estate agent and computer programmer. And there is no such thing as a “highly paid photographer”. 

Ryan Alford [00:15:06] I do want to know your perspective and I think people I've always wondered about this. My smartphone is being used by one of my guys to film this for Instagram, ironically.  So I don't have it. My hand is a prop, but. Smartphones have made everyone a photographer? But having been in the ad agency business, it's made me more appreciative of the art and of the ability of someone yourself, but at the same time, it's almost scary – because I see people capturing really important moments in bad lighting with their new iPhone and they think, and that's going to be the forever. So it makes me both happy that people are more into it, but also sad that maybe some of that art is lost. I think people want the perspective of photographers, the here and the now of – “everyone's a photographer with a smartphone”. 

Tim Roller [00:16:28] First of all, let's talk about the selfie, right? You hold your phone away from your face and you. You're so into yourself. And you can see what the picture looks like before you hit the button, that you're going to get a good shot and you're going to get that honest, real feeling. Whereas, if I'm taking someone's picture, I've got to pull teeth. But with a selfie, you are better. 

Tim Roller [00:17:03] I'm not a big selfie guy. I'm not impressed with how I look. So but the one thing that is harder to really capture is what photography, what a professional photographer is, what it does. And that's the thing that most people online don't even approach is what makes is the difference between a real photographer and a novice one. And with cell phones, that’s the great thing about them. You're driving down the road and all of a sudden a building starts falling over, you grab out your cell phone and you take a picture of it. And for news, it's fantastic for little things – to know it or people taking pictures of themselves and clothes and they can sell it either on a mobile application. It's on the phone and you basically do a screenshot of someone wearing clothes and they go to know it. And you put that screenshot and say, OK, they're wearing all these clothes and you can buy them here. And the person that did the shot gets the money. So they're great for that. But during a real shoot, you have hair, makeup, styling/wardrobe, and a stylist. You get a mood board. Then, you go pull the clothes out of the store. You have a relationship with the store where you can get the clothes. Then they bring the clothes the next day and iron them all with a steamer, not an iron. And then you put tape on the bottom of all the shoes so you can take the shoes back. And by the way, most times just buy the shoes because no matter what you do, you're going to damage the shoes and you have a story and you tell a story with a picture and you got to get that honest moment of someone and you've got to use the right lighting and you got to use, the right like modifiers. And you got a light in the background. So it looks good. So it's not just some dumb picture. You've got to tell that story. And if you could tell the story with an iPhone, I say that's fantastic. I think it's great if phones put me out of business. 

Ryan Alford [00:19:37] As a photographer, though, you're on social channels and you see what people are trying. I think there's a difference when someone's capturing the moment and they've done a selfie-and they're positioning it as such. What I'm talking about is when someone's taking the picture and they were trying to stage it and trying to make it look professional with the smartphone, does any part of you turn when you see that? 

Tim Roller [00:20:09] No, if it's a great picture, it's a great picture. If it's a crappy Polaroid, but it has this artistic value, pictures are history. It's how we define who we are as people even more than videos. I think videos are great. They're very important. They're becoming more important. But you can't hang a video on the wall. It's not a moment where you take your breath away. People ask me what camera should I buy? And I always say the cheapest one. Get a cheap camera and good lights and then good glass, good lenses. And if you do that, when I see lights, I mean flashes like Ellen Chrome flashes and just learn how to use that because you can go buy a 5000 on a camera and you don't know how to use it or 35 thousand on a camera. You have bad light, you have bad pictures. They're not smartphones. I mean, these cameras, these phones are smart. They look at the light, they look at where they get the color balance really close. You don't have to worry about it. So you don't have to worry about shutter speed and not worry about any of that nonsense. You just pick up the phone and take a picture. And if you can find that great moment, then you can find the great moment. Filters are another thing. It's cheating. Again, what's the most important thing is the thing you hang on the wall and make history with.

Ryan Alford [00:21:59] Radical chooses Tim for your ability with our clients, with people, with your skillset, with getting people in a comfort zone and really coaching them. You talked about the pin, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. But talk about. Anybody can push the button. I think the art of photography is being able to direct. I almost think of the director on the movie set, but the director of photography and like managing clients, managing people and getting that honest moment out of them. Where does that ability come from for you? 

Tim Roller [00:22:49] The first thing I do is I look at the person and I say, OK, they have a few extra pounds here. How am I going to get rid of that? I try to keep things right in the camera. I don't like to rely on post-production, which is Photoshop. So I look at it and say, “they're a little chunky here or they're a little skinny there or, what are my angles?” “How can I get the best angle to make this person look the best they can?” Because a camera adds 10 pounds to people, but if you get the right angle, it can take 10 pounds away. 

But you look at them and get a baseline of what you want to do. You make sure they're in good clothes. You make sure it's kind that the clothes are not flat, and are flattering on them. They're not, they don't make them look even bigger. I'm not a big fan of bras and underwear, because that's just what that does, is that if they have any fat on at all, even if they're anorexic, it's going to put lines on their clothes and look bad. Of course, you've got to be careful with that. So, but once you I tell people the same thing and I'll just go into my speech, actors don't act, actors react, they react to a situation. For instance, if I tell someone to act scared, that's such a broad term. No one really knows what that means. But I say, OK, you walk in a room, you see something shining on the floor, you pick it up and all of a sudden all the lights turn on. The police are yelling, get on the floor, get on the floor. And you realize there's a dead body lying there and there's blood everywhere, including on your hands. React to that. That's terror. You can react to a situation. So in the same thing, someone just asked you to marry them. React to that. You're having you're going to dinner and you're really happy about this guy or this girl you're going to dinner with, react to that. And so you get what you want to get reactions to honest situations. And it's hard to and a lot of times. Like when I'm taking pictures of, let's say, a woman, most of the time, it's a lot harder. So I'm hard on them. I'm like, “look at your mouth” and we go through because when I shoot I shoot tethered, which means the cameras took to the computer. So when I take the picture, it pops up on the computer. I said, Now look at your mouth and I'll show like five pictures of their mouth and they tell changes. And then I start going boring, boring, boring. And then that usually snaps them into, oh my gosh, my mouth is boring. I've got to give them something that is not boring. Now, you can't just have to develop a relationship with these people. You just can't look at them, you're boring. I've done that before and there's a lot of recoveries to do. But once you develop that good relationship and they understand that you care about them and you generally care about them, that you want them happy and you want them to feel beautiful, you want them to feel like, wow, I look like that. I took it because there's one guy and he’s a nerdy guy. And I took his picture. He's not one to fawn over himself. I mean, like this guy and I took the picture, I said, what do you think? And he just stood there looking at it because I can't believe I look like that. I said, we do because I can't believe it. I suppose like some other ones, he goes, No, I just want to look at that one for a while and for 15 minutes he sat there and looked at himself and it was really bizarre because he was so happy with it. And it's because he listened. And I found a moment where. He was being honest with himself. So you really dig in, you really get these people to believe the best way to be sincere, the best way to make someone believe you're sincere is to be sincere. So I sincerely care about the people I take pictures of, and I want them to be really happy with the images. I love to see profile pictures. And I took the picture. I mean, there are a couple of people out there that are pretty well known that use my pictures as their profile pictures. And I'm just that makes me really happy because it means they're happy with the stuff. I remember I shot a celebrity once and she called me afterward. She was yelling at me and she was like I look fat. I'm a fat pig. I'm like, well, no, you're not a fat pig. And these are great pictures. I don't care what you say. You're not using any of these pictures. They're all fat. So I called the best retoucher I knew and I said, “Christine, you got to help me here”. She looks fat. And Christine is the one that always reads me the riot act when I screw up. And she goes, Yeah, you pretty much screwed up. This is a bad angle for her. She has big hips. You have the hips closest to the camera. Why did you shoot this way? And after getting chewed out, we found three pictures that were good and she made it even better. And now this person uses it's the best picture anybody's ever taken ever. And they love it, but it's the only one that's worth anything. 

So that's another thing. You just need one or two good ones. And it's not a film anymore. It's digital. So just take a bazillion of them, but make them feel good, make them feel honest, pull that thing. And I always tell people, “look here we're dancing”. We’ve just had this thing going on, it doesn't have to be romance, but we're dancing. If I'm working with a guy and he's a business guy, I keep walking up and shaking his hand and I go, Do you want to do business with me because I want to do business with you? Show that and I keep walking up, shake his hand, I'm Tim Roller and Tommy, you want to visit me? I want to do business with me because I want to do business with you. I said, OK, see that without using the words. Just say with your eyes and your mouth and it works. You're not catching a moment, but you're catching a moment of feeling. So that's really what that's really where we're gunning for and you get that with a selfie because the selfie, you look at yourself, you're taking a selfie and they hold it high. So their chins, waist sticking away and they look fat and they're their bodies far away from the camera, which makes their body look thinner. And, they take their picture and it's a great selfie just because they found their own honest moment. But it's harder with a cell phone and you need light. Photos are painted with light. And that's the secret to the whole thing, is finding out the difference between an image that has great light and an image that's just ok. And I see pictures all the time, it's just constantly it's a girl. So I've done them. She's a pretty girl. I did shoot it somewhere and I just got lazy. And I had a big TARP draped over a staircase I like, I'll be fine flying well in the final images, the TARP was terrible and it would have taken me five minutes to remove the part TARP. And there's still that TARP is still stuck in the images. And all I see when I look at the image is the TARP. So take your image serious enough to make it right. Get it right in the camera. Don't rely on Photoshop. Photoshop is to retouch a bit of something. And make sure the lights are right in the camera, make sure the white balance is right, make sure you're in focus. There is no in the movies they go, can you enhance that picture so we can see the license plate from space? And it has no air. It's out of focus. You delete it. It's a ruined image. 

Ryan Alford [00:32:24] You talked about celebrities, you shot several celebrities, you shot a lot of models. Talk about maybe two or three unique shoots that you've done that are memorable and that stick out in your mind. 

Tim Roller [00:32:50] There was one girl in Atlanta, she's a world-class model. She walks in, she looks like a drowned rat. She was so, so thin. She was just so thin and she wouldn't talk. She wouldn't take instruction at all. I finally just gave up. And I thought this is just a complete waste of time, but this girl knew how to bring it when the camera clicked and it was just magic and I learned a good lesson. There are some people that know what they're doing. Then I want you to talk to them. They don't want obstruction.  “Just go do your job. Be quiet. Leave me alone”. I've had people tell me that, “I don't want you to talk to me. Just take my picture” and some of my best images of the skinny girl that came in and I thought it was a waste of time. And they're all over the place now. 

Ryan Alford [00:37:53] So, transitioning to where we are today, you're shooting, we've got indoor beauty, you've been helping with some of that with Nikki Huebner. I know you and Nikki have hit it off. You’ve been shooting products as well as some models. You've incorporated video into your portfolio. Still shooting, doing headshots, getting into some real estate I mean, talk about where you're at now and what you see. I mean, we're working with your jewelry line. We've talked, you've got an event space. You're a renaissance, man. 

Tim Roller [00:38:32] Well, I'm a man that wants to retire someday with money, So, you follow one thing and you follow another. Again, I think I've been compared to the kid standing up to his eyeballs in encounter in horse manure, just throwing horse manure everywhere, thinking, “the man of all this horse crap, there's got to be a pony in here somewhere”. So I've lived my life that way. And the jewelry line came about just because of my relationship with a certain Jeweler. I bought a watch there and they're just great people. And I told them about a ring. I wanted to buy it and they said we can make one that will fit. I said, “I like that it'd be cool to have a drum ring”, but I want a big and girly and because I have big fingers and big hands and they created this ring together. It's beautiful. I thought, man, that's a cool thing. Then we did another one and we did another necklace. And then I'm thinking, man, this is awesome. So I talked to Alex, your girl, and she goes, Yeah, this is something we need to do. So we're pursuing that. I have an event space where event bases are interesting because they're all expensive. They're all like. Four thousand dollars for the day, and that's not including food, right? So I thought maybe people that don't have a lot of money like me. Need a place to have a wedding or a kid's birthday party, so I'm designing this whole thing around a budget. Keep the budget down so we're not having to charge people. We're not going to get greedy. I don't like the way people say, “oh, you're getting married”. and suddenly, everything's 10 times more expensive. I don't like that. So, I want to make it very affordable. So I've kept the price down and hopefully, I can get this next little part painted without blowing my budget. 

Tim Roller [00:41:48] Well, it has to be these commercials that are getting made for Instagram or Facebook. I don't care how beautiful a woman is. At some point, we got to eat. It's just changing so much. I don't know what it's going to stop. What's the next thing people don't want to be inundated with commercials. That's why they have DVRs. So we fast forward to the commercials. So that's, that's the thing. What is the next influencer thing? Are they going to start cutting podcasts up so they can put in commercials for General Motors or anything?

Ryan Alford [00:42:18] Yes, we do our podcast through the anchor platform and it's a single platform, but then they broadcast to iTunes and Apple or Apple Music slash podcast, Apple podcast, Android. All the different platforms of pikas, like eight different ones are broadcast there, but they also now offer sponsorship levels so this might actually be sponsored. I haven't monetized ours yet and I don't know that I will, You never know their sponsors out there and you want to pay us we might take it, but yeah. But you can and that's the tough part. 

Tim Roller [00:43:01] I mean, all of a sudden someone says you can make an extra thousand dollars a week if you just let us do a commercial in your podcast and all of sudden you're selling out. Are you selling out or are you just trying to make a living? 

Ryan Alford [00:43:13] Here's what I think about that. And I'll go back to your question on whether it's a question or statement on Instagram and all that. The trick is. I think we're reaching it, Facebook's been there for a while. Instagram has become inundated, especially in the last 12 months as the bigger brands have gotten on the platform. And it's the reality of monetization of all that technology. Facebook's in this for money. They own Instagram. I get tons of beauty having it matches my client's love. I get tons of fitness, which we have a lot of clients on. I get beauty brands we have clients on. I get some corporate real estate stuff because we have a couple of clients there. So my feet littered with that. And the ads that blend in with that content, whether it's a really nice video or really nice picture, I don't have a problem with it. I engage with. The problem is the ones that are just one hundred percent sales offer driven. They're trying to do a TV commercial, a car TV commercial in the middle of your Instagram feed. People just scroll right by it and no one knows what if I knew what I'd be buying the stock today with the next Instagram will be. I don't think we've reached the point of complete commercialism on it yet. It's getting close. But as long as I think advertisers and marketers and what we're doing for clients, which is building contextual content, which is interesting and dynamic, and even some of the stuff we've done with you working on the video, that's interesting. That tells a story that brings something to life. And the same thing with the podcast. If Radical company, if we wanted to do an advertiser, I would probably only work with someone that was very relevant to my content, maybe another business that's radical in nature or interesting. And we did something – it's a commercial, but you blend it in and it's contextual and it's interesting. And the listener isn't going, what? This is a commercial. I don't want to listen to that. Tune it out. And I think that's the balance. And, Facebook's gotten really overloaded. But we try to fight the good fight, being an ad agency with our clients, doing the right content, telling stories and being interesting and engaging. But here's my crystal ball. I think we're moving more towards this realm. Platforms are always going to be important, but I think we're getting really close and we have this conversation all the time with individuals being their own media entities and the monetization and the platform, I think with blockchain and all this technology that's out there that might remove these walled gardens of Google and Facebook and Instagram, that will allow people to broadcast and be an entity among themselves. It's almost like you're a walking television show yourself. We have cameras in the room. I have people, a team that follows a lot of my stuff that's filming me and putting it on stories. And in a way, we're broadcasting our own stories. And I think you'll see technology come along in the next couple of years that removes the barriers of the walled garden of having to use a platform. There'll always be technology, but I could see it being baked into the smartphone, into the technology, and then it's up to the individual to monetize and, to make money as they see fit and not be tied to everyone else's thing. But, the reality is that's probably a little ways away. People like the experience of the field and seeing all of that stuff aggregated and curated for them. But it's an interesting world we live in. 

Tim Roller [00:47:23] So is privacy going to go away completely? 

Ryan Alford [00:47:25] We're getting close. Here's what I say about the privacy policy. And look, I worry about it, too. But we will all give up. We're trading a lot of conveniences. We're getting a lot of conveniences right now in exchange for our privacy. And I don't know where that pendulum swings on too far. And you could argue we're too far already with some things. But I think as soon as people say that, um, try living without Google for a day, when you when someone wants to bitch to me about privacy, don't use Google for a week or your cell phone and then come talk. Well, and then they're survivalists. But the other ninety-nine percent of us seem to like our conveniences. 

Tim Roller [00:48:17] So I feel like I'm kicking and screaming into this thing because I like my little bit of privacy. I don't like landing somewhere and then saying, “hey, try this restaurant, because, Joe, that you're friends with on Facebook”, that you've never known eight there and says it's good, I'm like, wow, that's just a little to me that's I guess because I'm older a little much. 

Ryan Alford [00:48:41] Well, I'm really appreciative of our partnership and where that's going. I'm really excited about where it's going. The art of photography means something to people even if they don't know it. We didn't talk a ton about the video, but it is a feature. But I think people will enjoy the perspective that you have. And I look forward to having you on again because I think we could delve into a lot of different stories and things. 

This is Ryan Alford with Tim Roller on the Radical Company podcast. Thanks so much for listening.