I’ve always believed in being curious over being critical. It’s what drives my photography, my writing, and most of my relationships. I want to understand the “why.” Why do people do what they do, and why do I feel such a deep need to understand that and connect with them? What happened in your life that made you light up or build a wall? That curiosity is what drew me to Tim Rogers.

He’s someone whose curiosity feels familiar and sincere. He’s the kind of guy that makes people feel seen and heard. He’ll walk up to someone sitting alone at a bar, strike up a conversation, and walk away with a new friend for life.

Our times at the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce overlapped for a few years, and I remember he always left an impression. I have a bit more experience and a lot more salt in my beard now, so I wanted to try to capture that impression in images and words. 

During our conversation in the studio, the most memorable moment came after we abandoned talk about his role as CEO at Charleston Stage. Don’t get me wrong, he puts a lot of himself into the roles he serves, he certainly did at the Chamber, but the conversation really started to shift when we got to how people misread his directness, how he still reaches out to friends across states and years, and how he quietly notices things about people no one else seems to see.

“I think people at times have thought that I am unfriendly,” Tim said. “Or, I don’t know if snobbish is the right word, but unapproachable. I’m not unapproachable at all, but I’ve been told by several different people over the course of different jobs that I can come off that way.”

He laughed at that, but it seemed like something that clearly stayed with him. “I’m from New York, so I can be direct,” he clarified, “but I have a genuine fascination with all kinds of people. What’s your story? Why did you choose that car? Why are you a photographer? I think human stories are fascinating.”

I’ve spent most of my life trying to connect with people in the same way. I’m genuinely interested, but I think people often read me as serious—or just hard to read—until they get to know me. I’ve learned that when I stop trying to change how I come across and just lean into what I feel—a deep desire to connect with the person in front of me—I start to feel more genuine. That is, in fact, how this blog was born.

From then on, our conversation kept circling back to that core drive: Curiosity. For Tim, it’s what compels him to make time for others. He consistently follows up and shows up, even if it might be easier not to.

“What motivates me to keep pushing forward with relationships is that general curiosity about people,” he said. “Especially as your relationships grow and you get to know people, I think my curiosity motivates me to be the one that makes the phone calls. The one that books the travel.”

As he paused, I felt his words settle in. “I feel like it’s so easy to lose sight of relationships, especially when someone doesn’t live near you. I think I’m just motivated by the desire to understand people and not lose them.”

I admire that so much because I’ve never been good at making those calls. I think about old friends often. I still love them dearly but I rarely reach out. I tell myself it’s been too long and that they probably don’t care, or that they won’t have time, and so the moment to text or call or make the trip passes, again. I feel a powerful need to reconnect and a deep curiosity about how they’re really doing, but it’s the fear of falling short, of not truly connecting again, that keeps me silent and distant. And in that silence and distance, I fear I become the very things I never meant to be: unapproachable and indifferent.

But when you run a theater company with 40 employees who depend on its success, you have to be the person who nurtures relationships. When hundreds of strangers walk into the theater, many of whom didn’t arrive together and won’t leave together, they are there to feel something together. Tim takes that seriously.

To make that work, “you have to be different people to different people,” he said. Behind the scenes, “I’m the serious one. The artistic director is the one who gets to say weird things and be fun. But I’m certainly not always a serious person.”

When I worked with Tim it was more indirectly, so I mostly saw his lighter side. But that was a different time and a different role. I can understand that battle between expectations and the essence of who he is, though. Everyone can relate to that. It’s a battle between wanting to give that lightness all the time, but also finding the strength to build boundaries that help ensure a theatre full of strangers can all feel the most genuine light possible when it counts most. That’s a different kind of kindness that isn’t always immediately seen on the surface.

Before he left, I asked Tim if there was a compliment that’s really stuck with him. I ask that of everyone in this series because it often reveals the kind light they bring into the world. It’s the light they most want to share most, even if life sometimes moves too fast for them to see it clearly in themselves.

He thought for a second and smiled. “A friend of mine once texted me and said, ‘I always love seeing you!  Don’t ever lose your enthusiasm and spirit. You make everyone around you smile.’ It was probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

It struck me how simple those words were and how deeply they landed. Despite any misconceptions, I think I’ve always admired that same enthusiasm and spirit in Tim, I just never said it out loud. After our conversation, I started thinking about the faces of people to whom I’ve wanted to say something similar but somehow never found the courage or the moment.

That text revealed something essential in Tim: the quiet, curious light that made me want to bring him into the studio in the first place. It’s a light that might be easy to miss when he’s the one running the show, and maybe that’s why it meant so much to him to hear it reflected back.

I think curiosity is a form of kindness, just as imitation is a form of flattery, and I think we need more of it. We need more curiosity and less criticism in leadership, in friendship, toward strangers, and toward ourselves. Maybe all it takes is the courage to sit beside the person who sits alone, or to call the friend you haven’t spoken to in far too long.

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Kind Light Charleston is an emerging professional headshot and personal portrait photography studio based in Charleston, South Carolina. I’m always looking for people to highlight in my blog, so if you know someone who shines a kind light in this world, I want to meet them! Reach out to josh@kindlightcharleston.com.