Todd Jordan:

A Pro Skateboarder Ramps Up His Photography Career

Photography is not Todd Jordan's day job. But as a professional skateboarder, he has enough free days and enough time during his skateboarding trips around the world to pursue his passion for taking pictures. And he's already taken his photo career to a high level.

Jordan, 24, started skateboarding while attending middle school in Kingston, New York. His prs career started when he joined the Zoo York team; later he was recruited to skate for the Nike SB team, a job that takes him around the country and to places like Japan and Italy. His off-time is spent in New York City, where, he says, his idea of a good time is "just hitting the sidewalks with my board."

Along with his skateboarding duties, however, Jordan managed time to graduate from New York's School of Visual Arts with a degree in photography. He has since developed a freelance career, shooting for publications like Vice, Mass Appeal, Transworld Skateboarding, Thrasher, and Skateboarding magazines. His work has been seen in group exhibitions, including "Photographs of Love and Desire" at the International Center of Photography. His biggest break, however, came with his first solo exhibition at te Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art gallery in New York last summer and with an exhibition in Tokyo in May.

Jordan's photographs combine fine-art and documentary techniques to capture intimate moments with his friends and the places he has visited as a skateboarder. While many skateboarders are also avid photographers and filmmakers - it's part of a personal aesthetic that the sport celebrates-Jordan differs in that he doesn't usually take the kind of action images typically seen in skateboarding magazines. On occasion, however, he likes to incorporate skateboarding into his real work to reveal the buoyant exuberance of youth, as in this photo, titled "Bruno on the Bridge," which was shot outside of Naples, Italy, in 2004.

"I started taking pictures when I was a kid with a little camera I got as a present," says Jordan, "and my interest in doing that seemed to go right along with my interest in skateboarding." Happily, his dual passions have resulted in a wholly original perspective.

Jan/Feb 2006