We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jordan Geddis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jordan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I learned how to take pictures from a friend of mine, I was always interested in cameras but I didn’t know the technicalities of it like the iso and aperture etc. She would really break things down to me and we took pictures of random things for hours just to get practice in and it really helped me and I’ll always be appreciate the help she gave me. To speed up that process I would’ve honestly watched more videos of YouTube and I would’ve picked up the camera a little sooner than I did. The most important skill needed when taking pictures is having patient, having a creative eye, knowing how position the talent/ how to angle the camera for the best shots. I’ve faced many obstacles when learning how to take pictures, for a while I didn’t have a camera to practice and I couldn’t afford one to practice at the time so I had to really save up and work for one. Also a lot of people weren’t willing to let me practice on them, so when that happened I just went out and started shooting nature photos until I felt comfortable with models/ talent. I’ve even faced the obstacle of feeling like what I was doing wasn’t good enough and it really got to me and bothered me mentally which was the toughest obstacle of them all.
Jordan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
So I got into the business kind of in a weird way. I would post my nature photos online and people would ask me take pictures of them for their birthdays or any events, I turned them down for a long time until finally one day I agreed to do one and it came out great and the feedback on it was unexpected and I’ve been loving it ever since. I’ve grown so much since that first shoot and now I’d like to consider myself a film photographer but I love shooting with digital cameras as well. Something that sets me apart from others is my style of photography I think it’s a little different but its not just that it’s the patience and the willingness to try new things and being open because a lot of people have been/ are photographers and there isn’t one exact way to take great pictures. My style would be described as vintage with a little modern style of editing so really mixing the old film camera look with the new editing software. The thing of the most proud of is finding my own style and also seeing the reactions of the clients I’ve worked with and even seeing other people that I haven’t worked with reacting to my work. Something I really want from potential clients is just the view of my work, just take a look at my photos really just sit back and analyze everything in the photo, and just let you eyes take you on a journey while looking at the photo. Everything is there for a reason.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is just being out working and being in the middle of the whole process. From taking the pictures, to editing and to sending it off to the client. That’s my reward because all the practice is paying off because someone believed in me enough to pay me to take their pictures.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My goal with my photography is to become a personal photographer for an athlete or a music artist. I would love to travel the world taking pictures with someone and showing the world their journey and the behind the scenes. Also I would truly love to put together several photo albums, with the whole album telling a story that connects all in a way.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
David Campbell, Jessica West, Jaylah Wilson, Rande “NuNu” Walker