Tim Tadder Creates Motions With Stills

Tim Tadder is a visual communicator of epic proportions. Not only is he a director producing motion work that elicits a response, but he is also a master at creating stills that look like they are in motion. Indoor Sky Diving company, iFLY, had the challenge to capture the joy of movement, and Tim was just the person to bring it to them. We asked Greatest Common Factory’s Founder and Creative Lead, John Trahar, to share some information on working with Tim and the iFLY shoot.

When we received the first email about the project, the overall idea was to create inspirational body flying photography with flyers in motion as if they were in an anti-gravity tunnel. Why did you choose to reach out to Tim at this point in the process?

The idea of “Choose to Fly” was fully baked, and we had successfully executed our vision in a video. However, we felt that previous attempts by the brand to create still photography that evoked a feeling of freedom had been mostly unsuccessful – people looked like they were struggling against the wind rather than enjoying flying. We saw in Tim’s work an ability to capture the essence of action in a still, so we chose to collaborate with him referencing several approaches he had taken before, rather than dictate an approach from the get-go.

What was it about Tim’s work that you gravitated to that you thought would be relevant for this project?

The wide range of techniques Tim has employed throughout his portfolio to capture action sports in still form greatly impressed us. Each one was its own thing, but all were beautiful to see. The variety across multiple campaigns that all delivered against an action sports brief gave us high confidence that we could capture our flyers in a way that would be unique to iFLY. 

Tim values creating epic work that elicits a response. Do you feel like he created an environment where his team could collaborate with yours to create such work?

From the first phone call, through some onset technical challenges to the stunning result, Tim was engaged and committed to his stated value. He wanted it to be great, and he delivered.

How is iFLY measuring success for this campaign?

iFLY measured the rebranding campaign in onsite traffic – visitation increased an average of 89% on the initial campaign launch of which this imagery was a part. Anecdotally, people loved the images as part of an iFLY tunnel redesign in Austin, Chicago, and Atlanta. Follow Tim on Instagram to see both motion and stills, and the pursuit of the craft of creating fearless, epic imagery.