We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jordan Griffith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jordan below.

Jordan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

I believe the education system needs reevaluate and develop itself into a system that can allow for the individual focus on a student with the intent to personalize and develop a plan and pathway that will enhance their ability to be successful on their route towards higher education. Over the past few years and decades, we’ve learned that there is no one way to be successful in school. The way students are currently taught all the way through college doesn’t have much room for variability and pushes this idea that you have to succeed in this one particular way, or you don’t succeed at all. This all or nothing mentality pigeonholes students into learning one style, usually cramming in terms of memorization, rather than actually building useful skills and techniques that would aid them in the career field you’re head towards. In my experience, memorization means nothing when you’re not actually applying the information you’ve learned in ways that are meaningful and connect them what you want your career to be. We end up spending dozens of hours on learning information that we never use.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Hi, My name is Jordan. I’m 25 years old and a mostly outdoor photographer based in Phoenix, AZ. I mostly spend my time capturing outdoor landscapes, wildlife, and environmental portraits, but I occasionally dip my toes into doing concert photography and portrait work. I mostly share my work on my Instagram under the handle @jordangoeshiking and work for a mission focused outdoor apparel brand by the name of Keep Nature Wild, we commit to cleaning up one pound of trash for every product sold, and so far we have cleaned up over 700,000 pounds of trash from outdoor spaces across the country through our WildKeeper program, where people can sign up and volunteer their time to cleanup a space in their own area every month and log their pounds and we host an impact day every month where people share what they did that month to keep their outdoor spaces clean.

I’m not exactly sure how I got into photography. There were always cameras lying about the house when I was younger, just little point and shoots. My dad loved to travel and be outside, so we’d always have a small little camera with us on family vacations or when he and I would go out hiking or dirt bike riding. I was always fascinated with any neat little electronic gadget, so naturally, cameras fell into my hands time and time again.

As I got older, I never really noticed it, but I was always taking pictures of things, I enjoyed capturing and sharing images, yet even thinking back now, I still don’t know what inspired me to do it so much. I was going to concerts a bunch in high school, so I always took a little camera and filmed some of it or took some photos, not much really turned out well, but they were a great record of the experience before smartphones were a thing. I also ended up taking a photography course using an old Canon Rebel DSLR my mom had. I surprisingly don’t have many memories of this course at all, let alone the pictures I took.

Fast-forward to 2018 while on a trip to New York City with a few friends, my friend had a really nice Canon camera, me being the techie I was, I asked to use it and kind of be the photographer for the trip and capture all the moments. I threw the camera into AUTO and went to town. I had so much fun on this trip and capturing it was a blast that when I went back home, I had to get a camera of my own, so I picked up a Canon 80D and started going on more adventures with the camera all over Arizona. During that time I just started to fall in love with the outdoors and hiking and one thing lead to another and I ended up starting my own Instagram page for my adventures. Since May of last year I have been chronicling my adventures outdoors and connecting with a larger community and since then my photography has been inspired and so has my mission to get more people inspired to explore their outdoor spaces through my photography.

Throughout my time getting more and more involved in the outdoors and connected to people and organizations working in these spaces, I became increasingly aware of and passionate about conservation efforts and advocating for the protecting and stewardship of our wild spaces. I strive to talk about issues in the state of Arizona, but also the world at large regarding climate change, pollution, how tourism is affecting outdoor recreation, etc. I originally saw myself wanting to be somewhat of an influencer on my page, but early on, I realized that just didn’t call to me. I felt as if we needed more people advocating and using their platform to educate the public and strive for more awareness of the issues our lands face and how we can better protect them. I still haven’t really figured out a vision of how to accomplish this, but that’s part of the journey. My camera has taken me places and given me experiences I never thought or intended to have and so far I’ve continued to follow down this path. I don’t know where it’s leading, but I know for certain that I don’t want to get off.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Well, I’m going to flip this question on it’s head and say that there’s no such thing as someone who isn’t creative. Creativity comes in many shapes and forms and doesn’t have to fit one particular mold. I used to believe I wasn’t creative at all. I never had any “natural” ability for the arts; and that’s the point. Creativity is not something that some have and some don’t, it can be taught. In my photography journey so far, I found myself over time thinking outside the box I had created in my own mind and coming up with ideas for shots or projects I wanted to work on through continuing to work at developing my creative muscle. I knew it was there because I simply chose to believe that there was no natural gift or ability setting me apart from a photographer that I deemed as more talented and skilled than me. I believed I could produce work just as admirable as their work was to me. Why? Because I knew I had the passion for what I loved to do, otherwise I wouldn’t be knee deep in a passion such as photography continuing to be persistent, even during times where I felt like I would never have what it takes to succeed. Belief in yourself and persisting in the face of struggle is crucial to making progress. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve botched shots or failed outings because I didn’t do something right with my camera or I went out when conditions weren’t ideal. But every time I failed, I went back home, figured out why I failed, and went back out the next time with new knowledge and strived to not make that same mistake twice. The more you learn, the more you fail, the more you grow. But you only grow and start seeing results when you decide to keep showing up.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being the style of photographer that I am are the experiences and people that it’s brought into my life. I haven’t had much of a fleshed out vision of what I want all my work, time, and dedication to amount to, but the journey it’s taken me on has been something beyond my wildest dreams. A camera gave me a reason to travel and explore the world around me on my own. I eventually was inspired to start my own Instagram page and share my work and connect with a larger community of lovers of the outdoors and photography. I’ve made such wonderful connections with other human beings and found so much more about the world to love around me. Photography in a lot of ways brought me back to life. It’s built up my own self esteem and completely changed how I even view myself as a creative and what I’m capable of.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanexplores/