Matthew Jordan Smith

The young, acquisitive, photographer Matthew Jordan Smith who was born in New York and raised in Columbia, South Carolina; who states that “Being in the south was a good experience for me as a child because it taught me to appreciate life”, Which his statement was understandable because this was still a time where whites were still trying to adjust to Blacks. Despite all the negativity he managed to stay strong and keep his positive mind, and a good thing he did because he wouldn’t be the successful man that he is today. Matthew Jordan Smith picked up an interest of photography from this father who also was into photography. Young Matthew at age 10 continuously sneaked around with his father’s camera taking snap shots of his family. When Matthew turned 12 his father was able to buy a camera of his own (Pentax Honeywell). Of course Matthew appreciated it and used it to his advantage, as an avid athlete in his youth; Matthew began taking pictures of his friend’s teams. Then thoughts of becoming a sports photographer came to mind. It wasn’t long before Matthew was off to the Art Institute of Atlanta where his career would take a significant step in the direction when one of his images was chosen to be published in Sports illustrated. Also while attending the Art Institute was where he was first exposed to fashion photography, and who ever thought that he would soon become one on the industry’s most popular photographer? Matthew began hearing about Parisian and Italian photographers from his professors who showed him images from Zoom, Italian Vogue, and also other high-end magazines that quickly got his focus to this genre. Straight out of college, Matthew was out and on his way to the big apple also known as the center of fashion New York City. Coming to New York gave him a great opportunity of landing a job as an assistant working for Bruce Buck, who is a high-end fashion photographer. Taking this job came with a lot of useful experience that would carry on with him later on in his career. This gave him firsthand experience what it was like traveling place to place, being under pressure on a studio set, the shooting environment, booking, producing, shooting and post production. This automatically got Matthew’s front in the door. His first shoot which happened to be with Halle Berry on an essence magazine. Matthew who was shocked by her beauty was speechless, but as soon the two started joking he was able to loosing up. Before the shoot Matthew states “knowing about your client your working with is one of the most important things. You want to make them feel comfortable at all times, so I usually do research and find out as much stuff as possible, and bring out my subjects personality" . Along with Halle Matthew was worked with supermodels Tyra Banks and Iman and also has been a guess judge on one of Americas highest ranked shows; America’s Next top Model, Working with others such as basketball legend Michael Jordan himself, Oprah Winfrey, Angela Bassett, Queen Latafiah, Gabrielle Union, and many more well known celebrities. His work has appeared in magazines such as InStyle, People, Savoy, Mademoiselle, Essence, Photo District News, and Professional Photographer. Matthew has more than 50 magazine covers to his credit. He also has had corporate clients which include L’Oreal, Pantene, Revlon, HBO, Warner Brothers, Showtime and Lifetime. Today 45 year Matthew Jordan Smith continues to live and work in Manhattan, New York still growing and developing in his skills for making beautiful images that show his unique talent, and he still remains the man behind the lens for some of the most popular entertainers.

work from Matthew on the set of American's Next Top Model