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EIZO Interviews Tigz Rice

Tigz Rice – Professional Empowerment Photographer

This is hopefully the first of many interviews I will get to do with photographers allowing us and our community of creatives to get under the skin, even just a little bit, of some of the professionals within the creative field. I have been fortunate to interview a few photographers for previous projects and whilst I do not proclaim to be a hard-hitting journalist or any expert in this field, I hope I can help provide some understanding as an interested observer into how they have become the professionals they are with a layman’s view into their world.

First up is long-term EIZO user Tigz Rice, who has established herself as one of the leading photographers in her field with an incredibly successful career shooting, and it is almost a perfect storm of one thing leading to another.

There is a long, extensive, and well-documented history of Women being the subject of artists, but as with many elements of human history, it has been dominated by men, painting and sculpting their female muses.

Throughout the history of photographers, there have been legendary females like Vivien Maier, but it has been an industry dominated by men. Over the last few decades, we have seen a significant increase, in the number of female photographers, which has led to a monumental shift in the way women are portrayed and photographed, from this new tranche of female photographers, across a huge range of genres. Tigz’s work feels very much as if it is all about the subjects being shot for themselves, rather than someone else. Her work is all about empowering women to be their true selves, to be shot in a way they want to be shot and to represent themselves in a way they want to be seen. Whether that is through her boudoir photographer or her personal and professional branding work, she ensures that her subjects are obviously comfortable in front of the camera.

Exploring what motivates Tigz to shoot empowerment photography

When I look at the work Tigz shoots, the way she curates the hair and make-up of her subject, the way they choose the outfits and the lighting of her images, I see someone who empathises with her subjects, and I see images that are timeless, images that are equivalent to the historical artworks we admire in museums around the world.

As Tigz and I sat down to talk through her work, I told her about my view on her work, to which she very coyly responded, “I think that's the nicest compliment someone could ever give me, and it resonates so hard with me because I believe that by existing in photographs you create a legacy. I want photos to exist, I want them to be worthy enough, that they last longer than the person is on this planet. Existing in photos is a part of creating your legacy and so to be compared to oil paintings of the past… and we all know how much value can be put on those… I mean, that's the ultimate compliment, so thank you.”

Even though Tigz comes across as this uber confident outward going young photographer, I felt there is something much deeper than runs within her, and I think it is this that makes her the photographer she is and why her career has continued to morph and develop, and why it will continue to do so. Tigz explains, “I crave deep human connection. The thing that makes me get out of bed in the morning is knowing today I might get the opportunity to understand what makes someone tick. I've been told one of my superpowers is that I can talk to anyone, and people often open up to me on shoots and share things they might not have told anyone else. It’s a real privilege that others feel comfortable in my presence in such a vulnerable space as a boudoir shoot. I know my WHY is to be on this planet to help people understand themselves, reconnect with their bodies and show them the beauty that I see through my camera lens.”

How did Tigz begin her journey as a photographer?

The majority of us crave a human connection but most of us probably never have a deep human connection with many people. I think the desire to make that connection has led Tigz on this journey that she has been on from a very early age, as she explains, “All the way through school I loved art and drawing. When I got to high school and started choosing what subjects I wanted to do, it was always the more creative subjects that drew me in.

During college, I actually wanted to go down the science route. I hadn't really considered that something creative might be a career, so I was pushing the human biology and psychology route alongside fine art and graphics. I wanted to do something related to surgery or forensic sciences but ended up failing psychology at ‘A’ level. I could either go back a year and resit or keep moving forward and go down the art route.

So, I pushed forward and enrolled in a foundation year at art school, choosing fashion, graphics, and photography. I say photography… I ended up dropping that module because I hadn't done the ‘A’ level course everyone else had. Due to the way the course was run, there wasn’t enough support for me to build myself up from scratch quickly enough to catch up with the rest of my cohort - and although my darkroom skills developed quickly, my actual photo-taking skills would need a little more time!

At university, I chose illustration because I couldn't decide which creative field I wanted to go into. I was told that as long as I could present my final idea in a two-dimensional format, then whatever I created could be considered as an illustration. That opened the door to printmaking, drawing, digital collaging, animation, and photo manipulation. These creative outlets encompassed all the things I loved without me having to make a limiting decision at 19 of what my future career was going to be.”

As Tigz talks about illustration, my thoughts about her work become ever clearer in my mind; how it has that timeless quality and how her illustration work brought her back to the world of photography, a world that she very nearly missed due to a lack of support. What a loss this would have been!

When I look at Tigz’s work I recognise more of the elements in the way she shoots, the way she poses her subjects and the way the makeup is applied. I asked if this was a conscious choice given her background in illustration. The response was not what I expected to hear, but in hindsight, I can see the natural development of her style. Tigz explains how the development took place, “I think it was a natural progression because, in my third year, I fell out of love with drawing and found myself instead creating picture books for adults. They were a perfect meeting point between photos and illustrative work; inspired by the incredible work of Dave McKean, I would photograph willing models in various poses to create their narrative, cut them out digitally in Photoshop and then create fantasy backgrounds to drop them into. I spent a good couple of years after Uni working on these picture books, with Wonderland? being the most notable.

I took photos because the retouching and photo manipulation brought me the most joy at that time. Stock photos were limited by popular style trends and paywalls, so if I wanted photos, I had to go out and take them myself. My photography at the beginning was really bad, I won’t lie. There's a limit to what you can achieve with a tungsten lamp and crumpled bed sheet in a room with no light. So initially, retouching was my stronger skill.

More and more people started saying to me, I love the work that you're doing, could I be photographed in that way too? I like the way that you see beauty in others and how you make them feel, I would like to experience that for myself, but in this subtle different way. And so, the journey evolved from picture books for adults into burlesque, then boudoir, then pinup, and even now bringing my creative eye and messages of empowerment into the corporate personal branding world. If you’d told me that 13-14 years ago, I would be shooting empowering portraits for CEOs and well-known brands, there's no way I would have guessed that was my future path!

Photography with meaning

“I think my own journey of self-discovery and experience on both sides of the camera has helped my creative career - I know what it feels like to be in that vulnerable space, to put yourself out there. I'm hyper-aware of my role as a woman in society and how gender roles have evolved in just a few short generations. We are still fighting for equality and have found ourselves in a modern society where we now have the opportunity to forge ahead and build incredible careers in our own name, whilst being hyper-aware of the roles our mothers played within the family unit, where they often chose not to work or took extended career breaks to be the primary homemakers and caregivers.

It’s a constant battle where we really want to be ‘this’ while our nurture taps us on the shoulder saying we should probably still try to be ‘that’ … and try to be true to ourselves on this journey of self-discovery whilst living up to unrealistic beauty standards and taking on two generations worth of ‘idealistic’ gender roles can be completely overwhelming.

And that’s before we’ve even discussed the daily challenges and microaggressions that our wonderful and beautifully diverse LGBTQ+ family must deal with on top of all that, which is why I don't limit my photography services to just women. There are so many of us on the planet right now trying to work out where we belong in the tapestry of the world, and it’s in my power to create a safe place for anyone who wants to put aside everything and explore what it means to be the truest version of self.”

I think listening to Tigz talk I get the feeling that photography is as much a cause as it is a vocation because I get the impression that it is by no means ‘only a job’. I have spoken to some photographers where elements of their job are a chore, it is what they do, and there is no passion. Passion is something that Tigz exudes, not the negative passion that sometimes overtakes people, but the positive overwhelming passion that drives people on to do the best they can, not only for themselves but also for everyone around them. Every shoot, every subject, and possibly even every image gets 100% of Tigz.

I was intrigued by this point of someone’s truest self, and I wanted to dive into a little more detail about what that means. I asked whether this was related to wanting to leave behind a legacy and whether she had any idea of the impact her work had on clients; “I often say to my clients that it’s important to exist in photos as a part of creating your legacy because you never know, you may end up in the history books! And as much as I have always known that to be true, I don’t think I really knew how powerful those words are until the last year or so when on several occasions, I’ve found myself tagged on social media in re-shares of my photographs announcing the passing of my clients. It fills a special part of my soul to know I've captured an image that others felt portrayed an individual's core identity so perfectly that THAT was the specific photo they chose to celebrate their time on this planet with.

I love it when you see the soul of the person shining through in a photo. It’s the difference between a forced smile in a corporate headshot you didn’t want to pose for, versus the candid shot at your best mate’s wedding when the photographer captures you in a moment of wild abandon living your best-unfiltered life on the dance floor. It doesn’t have to be the best-composed photo but if you see their personality shining through, that's the photo you're going to always connect with them. I just hope I have shot more work like that during my career. Because if I have, then I've done my job well.

How did Tigz develop her photography to what is it today?

Given our conversation so far and given the historical male dominance of the world of photography, I was still not sure how Tigz got ‘into’ photography, so I asked her to give me a little more detail on her journey from a self-described school misfit (in the nicest possible sense of the phrase) to the highest respected and world-renowned photographer. Tigz explains, “I picked up a camera in my third year (of university) because I'd fallen out of love with drawing and illustration. I honestly never planned it to be a career, it was a stopgap to get me through university and I was photographing people for these picture books and people kept saying, oh I really like the way you're shooting that; would you shoot me in the same way?

At the time I was shooting mostly dark pinups, with infrequent dips into the world of burlesque. Graduating in 2009, there weren't many people working specifically in the burlesque area. I could only name 4 other photographers and we were spread out across the UK. I had been putting myself forward for jobs, but it was peak recession so there were no jobs going. I’d aim for 10 rejection emails a day, getting a lot of no thank you’s or will get in touch or we will put you on file. One of them eventually got back to me and said their photographer had fallen through for tomorrow, could I cover? It wasn’t paid, but it was a press night for an event in London, and I could try and sell the photos afterward. It turns out that it was for a burlesque festival and on entering the venue I just knew I’d found my people. I spoke with the organiser who allowed me to come back every night for the rest of the week-long event.

I made loads of connections that week, and within nine months, I’d gone full-time as a burlesque photographer, as well as starting to do some ad hoc freelance in the industry for some of the tech companies (like EIZO!) as well, attending roadshows, offering demos, and giving talks showing my retouching skill.

After a while, people started asking if they could shoot with me as a non-performer, so I ended up bringing boudoir into my services. Then people started asking if they could be photographed by me with their clothes on, so I started offering vintage makeovers. And then during lockdown, people started telling me they would love to feel as confident and glamorous as my makeover clients in their business photos, so I launched my lifestyle and personal branding services. I suppose you could say the career has found me, for sure.

Life as a professional empowerment photographer

As a photographer, you have to create a safe space for others to feel comfortable in your presence and allow them to show their most authentic selves, and you can't do that if you have a permanent wall of technology blocking your face. Obviously, you need to look at the back of the camera to check the settings, etc. You might take some photos that aren’t your proudest work, but if you’re scowling at the back of the camera saying nothing, your client or muse doesn't know whether they've done something wrong, you've done something wrong, the situation is wrong, the lighting or clothing isn't right… and those feelings of self-doubt start to spiral.

Communication is key, and sometimes all you have to say is ‘I'm just testing the lighting’, or ‘You know what, I reckon the lights going to highlight your cheekbones better if we shoot from this angle’ to reassure your subject and change the entire way that your subject feels in your presence at that moment.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson talked about photographers as capturing the decisive moment. Tigz is very much about capturing that moment, but her decisive moment is when her subjects are at their comfortable, most relaxed, most natural. Photography is a strange skill. In its earliest days, people were often afraid of the camera, fearing it would steal their soul, early cameras meant subjects were often forced or held still to minimise movement that would ruin the image.

Today, Tigz is using her camera to capture the soul of her subjects to help them free their souls. I think this is a skill many photographers desire, but few possess, not having this skill does not make them a bad photographer, far from it, because sometimes you need to be able to disassociate from your subject or if you are shooting a product then the technical aspect of the shoot is more critical than the interpersonal component.

The closest analogy I can come up with is a Newtonian fluid, which becomes solid if you bash while fluid and supple if you are gentle. If people are treated harshly, they become solid and impenetrable, like a Newtonian fluid, if you are a little gentler with the same person, they are much more fluid with how they react to your interactions.

Tigz knows how to interact with people to get what she wants from them. She talks about empowering her subjects through her work but having sat with her for a couple of hours while we conducted the interview and had lunch, it became clear that I think Tigz herself is the empowerer, and her images are the result of the empowerment. By providing a safe space for her subjects, she puts them at ease - I know I was possibly the most relaxed I have ever been at the end of an interview and the rest of my day was all the better for it.

Stay tuned in with Tigz Rice

It was huge honour to sit down and spend time with Tigz. I found Tigz's to be an exceptionally passionate, talented and driven individual, who has a deep sense of meaning behind her work. She is someone that EIZO and I are proud to call a friend, and someone I’m sure will continue to impact people on all levels throughout her journey as a creative. If you are interested in more from Tigz, follow her social media channels below:

Instagram: @tigzrice and @tigzrice.branding

TikTok: @tigzrice

Website: https://www.tigzrice.com/welcome/

Tigz Rice features on the SheClicks Women in Photography podcast hosted by Angela Nicholson: https://www.sheclicks.net/podcast/tigz-rice

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