Meet Jordan
I didn’t set out to become a sports photographer. In fact, it started with birds.
I’ve always enjoyed photography, but wildlife photography was what first pulled me in. I especially loved photographing birds—they’re small, fast, unpredictable, and generally unwilling to cooperate. Getting a sharp image at exactly the right moment was a challenge, and I loved it.
Then my 8-year-old son started playing football, and photography took on an entirely different meaning.
His coach asked for a parent to volunteer to take pictures from the sidelines so the team could have photos that were closer to the action than what parents could capture from the stands. I volunteered. My sister, who loves portrait photography, joined me, and instead of taking pictures with our phones, we brought our cameras.
Before long, we were the team photographers.
I started photographing more games and eventually began taking team and individual portraits. Along the way, I discovered dynamic sports portraiture—the dramatic lighting, bold colors, smoke, and creative techniques that can transform a young athlete into someone who looks like they belong on the cover of a sports magazine.
I was hooked.
I began learning everything I could about lighting, posing, editing, and sports photography. My son became my very patient test subject as I experimented, learned, failed, tried again, and gradually developed the style that would eventually become Cyphers Media.
But somewhere along the way, I realized the photographs meant more to me than simply creating something that looked cool.
As a dad and a youth sports coach, I know how quickly these seasons pass. Uniforms change. Teams change. Kids grow up. The games that seem so important today eventually become stories we tell years later.
That’s what I want to capture.
Sometimes that means freezing a great play in the middle of a game. Sometimes it’s a relaxed portrait that captures an athlete exactly as they are right now. And sometimes it means breaking out the lights, colors, and smoke and creating something that makes a 10-year-old feel like a superstar.
My goal with Cyphers Media is simple: create photographs athletes are excited to see today—and their families will be grateful to have years from now.