Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim Kothlow.
Hi Tim, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
I was born and raised in Riverside, CA which if I’m being honest, doesn’t have much to do activity wise. The great thing about Riverside though is that it is centrally located an hour or so away from all things California. An hour West, brings the beach, South brings the desert and East brings the mountains. A lot of friends growing up would do desert activities, but my family and I all gravitated towards the coast. We grew up frequenting a little coastal town called, Laguna Beach. This is where all things art and surf began to influence me and my future life decisions.
In high school, I slowly realized that I had an eye for photography after joining the photo club my senior year and some serious encouragement from a couple teachers at school. (Thanks Mrs. Beck & Mr. Schiller!) Since I was landlocked in Riverside during school, I would supplement my longing for the beach with subscriptions to both Transworld Surf and Surfer Magazine. These magazines lead me towards the idea of wanting to be the photographer behind the photos of these amazing surf trips that I would see on the pages.
When I got to college, I quickly realized that I didn’t know as much about photography as I originally thought. With a nice helping of humble pie, I learned all that I could from my teachers and fellow classmates and continued to work towards the dream. While in school, I set the goal of being the photo intern for the famed Surfer Magazine. Somehow, by my senior year, I was able to land the internship of my dreams and it set me up for a career in surf photography after school.
Photography for me didn’t really click until I met the photojournalism professor at school, Jim Veneman. I would spend countless hours in his office and we would talk all things life and photography. More often than not, I would be in there going through what felt like a mid life crisis trying to figure out if photography was something that I could even pursue. Jim has a way of giving advice that always involves a very long, yet engaging story. He takes you on this journey which keeps you wondering if there was a meaning to everything he was saying, and somehow brings it all back with a profound answer to your question. It’s wonderful.. I owe a lot to my friends while going through college, but I owe even more to Jim. He taught me how “to see” when it came to images, and I am forever grateful to him for that.
After college, I traveled around the world for a few years living the dream as a surf photographer. I spent most of my time shooting with the women on the WSL Championship Tour and have made some of my closest friends while doing so. I made frequent trips to the Hawaiian Islands, Mexico and had the chance to visit Australia and the Maldives. My time as a surf photographer was amazing to say the least, but eventually, I became burned out and noticed my head wasn’t in the right space. I took a short hiatus from surf photography and it lead me down the path of photo editing.
I began my photo editing career at a picture news agency called ZUMA Press. There I was taken under the wings of Ruaridh Stewart, Julie Rogers and Jimmy Colton. I spent a year at ZUMA working with photographers all over the world for breaking news stories and long form narrative photo stories. I learned how to source photographers around the world in a moments notice and how to collaborate with some of the best image makers out there to tell stories.
One day I had lunch with a great friend of mine from college, Jacob Gonzalez. He is a sports photographer who is currently working with Atlanta United FC, but had previously worked with the NFL. Jokingly we talked about him throwing my name out there to the NFL seeing if they needed a photo editor, and he did. In a matter of a month, I was in contact with Ben Liebenberg, the director of photography for NFL. I interviewed for a photo editor position and a few weeks later I had received an offer letter. Those few weeks felt like a lifetime to me. On top of waiting to hear if I got the job, I also attended the famed Eddie Adams Workshop in New York. I had no business being there, but was glad I attended. I was able to meet many inspiring photographers, some of which are my closest friends to this day.
Now a few seasons into working for the NFL, I am balancing life as both a photo editor and a freelance photographer. It has been a wild ride to say the least, but I am just getting started and I am pretty excited for what the future brings.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When things happened, they would happen quick. When things didn’t happen… it felt like a lifetime of waiting. Down time was always hard because that is when thoughts of doubt would begin to creep in and I would begin to question both my self worth and skill as a photographer. It’s something that most artists go through, the constant roller coaster of having work and not having it.
The greatest obstacle that I had to overcome was somehow convincing my parents that I could make a life for myself doing photography. As far as I know, I’m the only person in my entire family who has ever attempted a career in art/photography. My parents support me through anything and everything, but they weren’t very fond of the idea of me being the “starving artist.” My dad was easier to convince than my mom. I had to tell my dad the plan/road map of my career and then proceed to show that I was executing said plan. My mom started warming up to the idea of working in photography once I had a desk job as a photo editor. It was all out of love, but I definitely used this as fuel during school/my freelance career to succeed and build a life out of photography. Just ask my friends from college, they will tell you how much motivation I got from trying to prove to my parents that I could succeed.
Now, the hardest challenge for me is trying to break into the industries that I want to shoot for. I’m working on transitioning from shooting exclusively surf, to shooting broader outdoor adventure images and stories like sailing, spearfishing, fishing and hunting. I’ve since amassed some amazing friends that are helping me do so, but I have a long ways to go I think before getting work in those areas.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Currently, I am balancing the lives of both a photo editor and a freelance photographer. When it comes to photo editing for the NFL, I primarily work on game days. Myself and the other photo editors I work with are assigned a handful of photographers who are shooting games. In between the action, photographers will transmit images to us straight from their cameras so we can edit/caption and send throughout the league. Aside from working with photographers, we also field requests from throughout the league to provide imagery for breaking news or other photo related requests.
Everything moves pretty quick on game days. There will be images from games up live on our website/social media channels in a matter of a few minutes from when the action happens on the field. Because of editing with the NFL, I have been able to start freelancing in this field. I’ll either do second edits for photographer friends of mine, or I’ll do live game day editing for other sports/teams.
Besides editing, I’ll still shoot surf and other outdoorsy things with my friends. I think I am known for my adaptability and my ability to put people at ease while photographing them. I’ll get questions all the time asking how I’m able to get such natural looking images of people and honestly, I think it’s just because I focus on getting to know the person instead of creating a nice looking image. When I work to get to know someone and learn about their story, the rest just falls into place. I’m pretty proud of that because it allows me to form deep relationships with people that I photograph, and those are some of the greatest relationships I have. It’s amazing to think of how many people I am great friends with now just because of a simple “Hey, would love to shoot with you sometime!” message. That one phrase alone has been my entire photography career.
I think what sets me apart from others is the fact that I will reach out to anyone and everyone for either advice or an opportunity to shoot. During college, it would blow my friends’ minds when I would hit up a photographer that we all looked up to for advice, or someone famous to try and shoot with. Even now, a lot of my friends/coworkers find it hard to believe who I reach out to for an opportunity to shoot. It’s all about putting yourself out there. And besides, what’s the worst that can happen? You get ghosted or it’s a “no”.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Luck is a real thing… but I also think luck comes to those who work really hard for what they are trying to achieve. Was it just plain dumb luck that helped me to get to where I am today? Maybe. But I like to think that all of my hard work throughout school and my early career that put me right where I am supposed to be. Luck really helps, but so do real relationships and hard work.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.timkothlow.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t_kothlow/
Image Credits
© Aaron Doster
