Tal Roberts

Tal grew up in Gig Harbor, Washington, where an obsession with skateboarding sparked a desire to photograph it. He purchased his first Nikon film camera in his early twenties and began documenting the many activities in which he took interest. While many professionals in the world of action sports can become calloused after years of involvement, Tal radiates pure optimism and carries a sense of genuine curiosity for everything and everyone around him.

Q: You started taking photography seriously about fifteen years ago. With everything dramatically switching to digital these days, do you think it would spark your interest if you were just now getting into it?

A: Yeah, I think so. As long as I was able to see passed all the digital dumping grounds and know that there are more uses for images than content for a social media account. I try to make as much physical stuff as I can, that is a big thing for me. That was the big push for the [Layers] art show we did, to make physical stuff. It’s not always convenient to make prints so it’s good to have a push to make something physical. Like something that won’t just die when a hard drive dies. It’s good to have stuff to put on the wall or on the fridge, or to send to somebody or throw on the floor. Whatever you want to do, as long as it’s there it’s better than only existing on a glowing screen. I’m really into craft and making stuff by hand, I was just doing some prints the other day, sizing them for these frames that my friend John Morgan made out of recycled skateboards. He cut them thin and made picture frames out of them, I made a bunch of prints to go in them and we’re going to pour some epoxy over them to make them solid pieces. It’s cool to do stuff like that.

Q: You shoot a lot of different things, I’m curious about the evolution of your work. How did you end up shooting such a wide range of activities and products?

A: I’ve taken the opportunities I’ve had to shoot a variety of things, a lot of that has been based on the locations I’ve lived. Obviously, being from a place where we were skating a lot, that’s something that I gravitated toward shooting. When I moved to Idaho I had this whole new world in front of me, where in the winter there was a lot of skiing and snowboarding that I was doing, and in the summer mountain biking was huge, so a few years down the line I got into that as well. When I had the chance to shoot different things I tried it. And I still do. I try to take opportunities I get and learn from shooting different kinds of things. If there’s something I think I can learn from, I do it.

Q: Does anything change about your work when you are learning to shoot something new?

A: I think you can learn or take influence from any particular activity and take it to another. I think that’s when you get some more interesting stuff. All those different activities have their own skills that you learn, basically from figuring out how to deal with problems that you have in the environments, you know? Like snowboarding can be tough, especially in backcountry, because you can’t just walk around and look at every possible angle like I will at a skate spot. If you’re in a good amount of powder it’s not easy to move in, and I don’t ever want to walk much closer than where I might shoot from because I don’t want to put footprints in the shot, so I am always kind of starting from the outskirts.

Q: That’s something I would have never even thought about. I’m a skateboarder and have little experience snowboarding, I can’t really imagine what it would be like going backcountry snowboarding. What does the process look like when finding spots and getting to the top of the mountain?

A: A lot of what I’ve done is snowmobile access. So we’d ride snowmobiles out and find spots that were good for jumps or find lines that people want to ride. I have also done a bit of touring, so you’re on a split-board that comes apart into skis, or approach skis that have skins on them and you’re able to climb in the snow better. So there’s human-powered and snowmobile-powered routes you can go. Sometimes you use both in the same day, take the snowmobile out somewhere and then tour up to where you’re trying to get to.

Q: At what point did you realize that you could do this full-time?

A: While I was getting smaller magazine editorial kind of jobs I was working construction. I definitely didn’t jump headfirst into this like, “I’m going to be a photographer and it’s all going to work out.” It was a really slow build to get to a point where I was making a living as a photographer. I worked other jobs longer than I needed to. I worked in a shop repairing and tuning snowboards at night. I would be out all day shooting snowboarding and then go in and tune snowboards. There wasn’t really a scary leap. I’ve always lived below my means so I don’t remember there being a big stress making that jump. The bigger burden was trying to build up the gear I needed and keep it current because digital technology is constantly refreshing.

Q: How long ago were you able to switch to full-time?

A: Probably six or seven years ago.

Q: Are there any particular photographers that influenced the way you shoot?

A: Tons. I really liked the people that were doing something different. If you are used to looking at skateboarding a lot, and then you start looking outside of skateboarding photography—both present and in the past—you’ll see so much that will open your eyes to different possibilities and different ways that you can shoot, which I think is really cool. And I think I have always tried to pull inspiration from things outside of the activities that I shoot.

Q: Are you still equally as excited and curious about shooting as you were when you first started?

A: Yeah! Probably even more now. There’s so much you can learn and things you can try. You can try different formats of cameras, or different lighting techniques, or different films. There’s so much to explore, and so much that I want to explore that I haven’t.

Q: How much time do you spend away from home every year? I always seem to be busy in winter. I’d say a third of the year is a good guess. I didn’t travel much growing up. Even in my early-mid twenties I didn’t go to any new places besides the west coast. All of this travel is a new experience to me, and a lot of the places I go I have never been to before, which is super cool. Every place that I get to go to that I haven’t been is a big plus.

Q: Was traveling ever a goal for you when you were younger?

A: When I figured out that photographers got to travel it was a big motivation to stick with it and get to a point where people will have you on trips.

Q: You document quite a bit of our generation’s interests. Do you feel like a lot of the things you shoot tell a story about our time period?

A: Yeah, at least about us and the stuff that we are doing. I’ve always liked doing stories in a journalistic way, I like doing editorials. I think sometimes just being in different places gives you a chance to make really good images. I haven’t done much of that in the last couple years because I’ve been busy with commercial stuff.

Q: How do you feel about the future of photography and its role in a digital society?

A: I think about a lot of classic photography, like Magnum photographers and photojournalists. I feel like that stuff is really important and the types of cameras and films give certain looks to time periods. It’s all very historical. I wonder what people will look back on from this generation. There is going to be so much bullshit with people taking pictures and video of every second of their lives. Where is all this going to go? And what will end up being important? It’ll be really interesting to see what we hold on to and how we use these images.