“Every day, I wake up with a smile on my face, excited about photography,” says photographer Tyler Shields to the Phoblogrpaher in an interview. “It gives me a life that not many other art forms can. Making a movie is a long process with many people involved, but with photography, it can be minimal and intimate, which gives it a magical quality.” Part of this joy comes from the fact that he’s working on a brand new book too.
All images by Tyler Shields. Used with permission in our previous interciews. Check out his website for more.
Tyler is too good for the algorithms. We’ve covered his work for around a decade or so and I remember when both the publications and social media channels couldn’t get enough of him and his Instagram. Tyler kept making art while social media algorithms persued commerce instead of spreading the stuff the people genuinely loved. But like any real photographer, that hasn’t stopped Tyler. He’s surrounded by cameras — he even calls one his Mamma Mia. Like so many other photographers sick of the content creation world, he’s making a book. This one contains work that he’s done for the past 15 years.
Mr. Shields is insanely unique. When I look around the photo world and speak to several photographers, they seem to take inspiration from other visual mediums. But Tyler’s work doesn’t always do that — his Historical Fiction series might’ve been the closest thing. His photography isn’t always made in a studio or on location through a creative process, either. Sometimes, he turns a creative eye to documentary. He’s even made short films. In fact, Tyler calls his mind a wild place. His focus is trying to say something and what the images mean to him. The photos can take a while to make — but he always tries to make magic occur.
“At the end of the day, I can’t imagine doing anything else. This is the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, and I feel incredibly fortunate to wake up and say, ‘Oh, I had a dream about a photograph last night. Now I’m going to go.””
Tyler Shields
We’ve often spoken here about how art and content are different things. “I’ve noticed that many young people today almost work for Instagram in a way,” he explains. “They create with the sole intention of gaining likes, which leads to a lack of innovation and creativity. Instead of thinking about the meaning and impact of their work, they focus on popularity.” It’s a stark contrast to the work Tyler has done. Where content creators feed into what works for them, Tyler has consistently made new work that feels uniquely different while identifying holistic as his own work.
He doesn’t care how many likes a photo gets. Instead, it’s all about whether or not he likes the image, the meaning, and how he feels about it. Tyler lets the audience decide whether or not they like it.
It’s a thought process that Tyler has adhered to for years. More importantly, it brings up the curious question of what your favorite YouTubers actually do. How many of them are actually photographers? Personally speaking, I’m a journalist — but I’ve got an actual website, print sales, and I’ve been featured for my work on other publications before.
This is why I believe there is a dangerous game between content and art. Everything I create, I never think about whether it will get likes or not.
Tyler Shields
For Tyler, each image is an extension of his journey. The images he makes now, he never would’ve made a decade ago. He attributes this to his contual evolution in how he wants to make iamges. Tyler grabs his camera and envisions how it will feel, like, and the tone. In fact, he thinks about shooting it on an 8×10 camera and how it will appear printed. This is a level of creative vision that isn’t really realized these days. Many photographers look, but they don’t see. “These are things I didn’t know when I first started,” Tyler admits. “It’s something you learn over time and through living with photographs. When you walk into a gallery and see a photo you took 10 years ago, you may think, ‘I would do that differently today.'” Galleries and this thought process are part of the artistic journey and photographic identity that he’s forged for himself.
I remember starting out without understanding how to achieve a certain look in an image. I wouldn’t have taken an image like that back then. Seeing an image on Instagram versus seeing it printed in a gallery or a book evokes completely different feelings. My goal now is the same as it has always been – to be a better photographer today than I was yesterday.
Tyler Shields
Recent studies have really backed up what Tyler is saying, too. The print market is said to explode over the camera market within the next decade. It’s a stark contrast to the original iamge vs the hundreds or thousands of photos people view on average in a day. Part of Tyler’s growth, however, was the print — citing to us that he can’t stress enough how important it is even if you’re not a fine art photographer. “It will teach you so much,” he tells us. “The feeling of having your work on your wall is indescribable. Seeing the image printed, whether it’s an inkjet print, silver gelatin, or platinum palladium, creates a different connection.” He reiterates a similar line that I used to hear all the time — that a photograph is taken with a cmaera but made with a print. Of course, that seemed to disappear in the 2010s as people printed less. But at least now, it seems like the print is making a strong return.