Jordan Pearson
© Meghann Justine Photography
I feel as though I've been struggling to defend myself with my chosen field of photography to my very commercial-driven peers. There are several reasons for my choice to become a traditional portrait photographer over a commercial or advertising photographer.1) The most important part of life, in my opinion, are the people in which you spend it with. At the end of the day I truly do not care what I make, just as long as I can pay my bills and be able to spend the most time as possible being surrounded by interesting and loving people. In several years I plan on starting a family with my fiance, and I want to ensure that I can build my business around my future children. I don't want the kind of photographic career that involves either living in a large city or traveling on a consistent basis. I want to be actively involved with raising my children, and believe that someday that will be my number one priority.
2) Photographing people has always been my passion. Only until last year did I even attempt to photograph a model, and truthfully, it was not an overwhelmingly pleasant experience. The studio environment combined with the thin, overly made up models left me feeling as though the image I was photographing had been done a million times before (which it had been). I prefer real, human beings with real facial expressions and real bodies. There is beauty in everyone, and I believe it is a disservice for photographers to only shoot one type of people-there are billions of others out there! Diversity is a beautiful thing and I fully embrace it.
If you would have asked me last year if I would ever consider being a portrait photographer, I probably would have laughed in your face. There's something about art school that trains students to think that some careers are simply beneath them. However, I believe that you should do what makes you genuinely happy, which is why I went to art school to begin with. If that means that I become a portrait photographer, who cares? I have learned more than I ever thought I could about the language and the art of photography, and I want to share my skills to bring out the best in people and create images that make them feel good about themselves.
