Jordan Tovin

I am Jordan Tovin. I began studying photography in high school after finding my mother’s film camera at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. After that, I’d consistently sneak out of my painting class to go to the darkroom to develop and print. With the quarantine, photography became an outlet for how restless I was at home. In trying to get better at photography from any resource I found online, I would go on walks through the woods to become more comfortable with a camera. But the night that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, there were massive celebrations in downtown Atlanta, and my father was kind enough to drop me off under the condition that I wouldn’t get too close to anyone. This was my first taste of photojournalism, and it’s what made me want to pursue it as a degree and career.

After deciding to go to school at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design in Washington, D.C., I threw myself into the political photography scene, trying to build off that night in Atlanta. I reached out to anyone and everyone who was a working photographer in D.C. as I began to navigate this ever-changing industry. As time went on, I didn’t stop respecting those who photographed politics, but the act of making pictures of politics lost its luster for me.
Over the course of my first two years in school, my professor, Matt Eich, helped me realize that it was the ability to interact with people and communities that really got me excited about photography—something that I couldn’t find as common in political photography. It was also at that time that I began looking at a wider variety of inspiration that extended beyond Washington, D.C. Connecting with other photographers—whether they were students like myself or working professionals—at workshops and conferences simultaneously helped broaden my scope of what interested me about photography. In shifting my focus to documentary photography, I’ve since been able to work on projects that are full of surprises and introduce me to parts of our world I’d otherwise miss. It’s through the process of making this work that I’ve learned the most meaningful photographs come from time, trust, and curiosity, and that building relationships is just as important as the pictures themselves.