https://nasacademy.com/blog/article/jordan-matters-story

Creator Story

Jordan Matter’s Story to Photography Fame

Find your unique voice

Admin Nas Academy

19 Oct · 5 mins read

If you’ve ever roamed the streets of New York and seen acrobats hanging from streetlights, or dancers leaping in the middle of the road – you may have been witness to one of Jordan Matter’s legendary street photography shoots. If you don’t already know who Jordan Matter is, he’s a talented YouTuber and photographer, praised for his incredible portraiture and dance photography.

Over the years, this 55-year-old New Yorker has taken the photography scene by storm with his camera, his vibrant personality, and his ability to capture the true essence of his subjects through his work. He’s known for mixing the incredible with the mundane, like his classic photos of talented, angelic dancers in the busy, harsh city streets of New York – exactly where you would least expect them. But while he seems to live behind the camera these days, his dreams were actually to be on the other side of the lens.

Jordan Matter’s Early Life

Growing up, Jordan had a family that was constantly around cameras – so it was only natural for him to end up a pro photographer later in life. His grandfather, Herbert Matter, was a wildly successful photographer who had worked on projects for JFK, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and National Geographic. Jordan has many fond memories spending time in the darkroom developing photographs with his grandfather – little did he know he would end up following in his footsteps years later.

Jordan’s own parents were also no strangers to the camera with his mom being a model, and his father a successful filmmaker. At first, Jordan was just a bystander in this world – in fact, he was really into baseball in college. But when he finished school, his artistic roots started to surface and he decided to try out a career in acting. Although he didn’t stick with it, this was a preliminary step in his career to discovering his true passion for content creation and photography.

Picking up the Camera

One day, the baseball star and acting enthusiast discovered his interest for photography while hiking up a mountain. When he reached the top, he went to take a photograph of the beautiful view with his instax camera and realized he couldn’t actually take a decent photograph – he didn’t know how to tell its story with justice.

That’s when Jordan decided he wanted to take his first photography course. And the moment he developed his first picture, he had that “aha” moment that most creators have when they know they’ve found their passion. Jordan found great inspiration in the art of photography specifically after seeing work by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work, a popular photojournalist with an incredible ability to capture the human essence in a picture – and tell a story with it. 

It was here that Jordan realized he had no interest in other types of photography that focused on animals, landscapes or anything of the sort – what sparked his passion was people. He wanted to capture subjects like Henri did. He wanted to make his work human, and tell the stories of incredible people around the world through a simple picture. 

Photography was a hobby of Jordan’s that soon developed into a passion, but even then, he never saw it becoming a career. That was until he went to visit a friend one day, and they were looking at some headshots she had gotten done. When Jordan saw the lack of personality in the photos and heard the outrageous amount of money that she paid for such mediocre pictures – he decided to take a shot at it himself.

They went out and clicked some headshots of their own, and Jordan was instantly mesmerized by portrait photography. After this, the agency that Jordan’s friend was with started sending him other clients to shoot for – and before he knew it, he had a full-blown portrait business going.

And while portraiture is still a great passion of Jordan’s, he later started to take his work in a new direction: dance photography. And it’s turned his career into something that he never thought possible.

Shooting the Talent Among Us

Jordan noticed that there was a gap in the market for dance photography at the time, and so he jumped on it. He’s since been focusing on capturing incredible artists from all around the world – and even talented athletes now – in the most mundane circumstances. He’s showing the essence of talented people alongside normal, everyday spaces where you would probably never see them.

Jordan’s gone on to work with circus stars, contortionists, acrobats, and dancers all over the world. He’s even published three popular photography books that have been highly recognized and admired: Born to Dance, Dancers After Dark, and Dancers Among us – which landed on the New York Times Best-Sellers list. 

Jordan Matter jumping for a photo

Jordan has worked with countless celebrities out there like TikTok stars Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio, along with Cirque du Soleil and the whole cast of the popular TV series, Dance Moms. He’s worked with countless other public figures and even did a 10 minute photo challenge with famous dancer Derek Hough. Over the years, Jordan’s work has been featured in media outlets all around the world, and he’s been recognized by Seth Meyers, NBC, ABC, BBC, and more. 

Growing Big on Social Media

Jordan’s growth on social media wasn’t instantaneous. In fact, it took him 5 years of consistent work and posting on instagram to land just 100K followers. And then in 2018 – he hit his first million.

There wasn’t anything in particular that Jordan changed to help him get there, but what he did have was his YouTube channel. And as people started to discover his videos, where he would document his process and experiences as a dance photographer, people started following along for his unique and inspiring work. While YouTube wasn’t his initial focus – it had a huge impact on getting people to see his photos, and the platform is even more popular than his Instagram now. 

Jordan’s Instagram currently has just over 2 million followers, and his YouTube channel has over 12 million subscribers with over 1.6 billion views. Jordan’s videos land millions of views almost every time – especially when it comes to his popular “10-minute photo challenge” series.

Sharing His Story

Jordan has always believed that your unique voice is what will help you thrive as a creator. He started his journey by finding the one thing about photography that enticed him the most – and that was human connection. Showing somebody’s essence through a picture, and sharing it with the world. 

Jordan is a spontaneous photographer who doesn’t plan much when it comes to his shoots. He even admits that he rarely focuses his efforts on specific techniques when he takes his photos – instead, he puts more importance on his reason for taking the photo in the first place. His passionate approach to photography has made it so that even he, as a 55-year-old man, has been able to jump over any generational gap that exists on social media, and still appeal to younger audiences with his work. 

Jordan has since passed down his wisdom, and taught his son how to work the camera – who apparently is now on track to being a better photographer than his dad. And his daughter, Salish, is a talented dancer who often appears in his videos, and was featured on the cover of one of his photography books. 

And now, he’s decided to join forces with us right here at Nas Academy, to share all he’s learned about photography with you – and trust us, you don’t want to miss this one. 

Subscribe to the Nas Daily Creator Community

We’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to learn directly from Jordan Matter when you subscribe to the 10k Creator Community if you have more than 10k followers, or the Nas Daily Beginner Creator Community if you have less than 10k followers! In his ultimate photography class, Jordan will teach you all the skills he’s learned as a world-renowned photographer and YouTuber so that you can become a pro at visual storytelling.

You may even get to meet Jordan in live online events that you don’t want to miss! Subscribe today for a once in a lifetime opportunity to practice your photography skills alongside passionate photographers from all around the world.

Create EPIC photos!

You might also like:

Join a Class For Free

Enter your email and we’ll send you information to join a free trial of one of our favorite courses.

Copyright © 2021 All Rights Reserved by Nas Education