Some kids dream of growing up to become astronauts, firefighters, or veterinarians - ask  Jordan Smart and he’ll tell you he can only ever remember dreaming of being a musician. With humble beginnings, Smart grew up going back and forth between two households. One home with two hearing parents, where music was in the background frequently, and his other home with two deaf parents and naturally, a lot less music. 

Shortly after graduating high school, and less than a decade after receiving his first guitar for Christmas at the age of 10, Smart quit his dead-end job on a whim and armed with little more than his guitar, harmonica, and a strong sense of adventure, he ventured far from the cornfields and amish buggies of rural Ohio to roam among the redwood and eucalyptus forests of the coast of California. It was there he cut his teeth as a street performer while busking and hitchhiking in and out of Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Big Sur. 

After several years of bouncing between the Rockies, Midwest, and the West Coast, gathering up countless tales and invaluable life experience along the way, Smart found himself living back on the coast of California where he received an invitation to open multiple rallies for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Since then, he has toured much of North America, beat out over a thousand submissions from around the globe to win GemsOnVHS’s songwriting contest, organized a mutli-volume compilation album for Gaza relief efforts feat. the likes of Billy Bragg, John Moreland, and Carsie Blanton, and once toured in (and duct taped) John Prine’s Cadillac. His viral anthem “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” has been dissected in University lecture halls, cited in books, covered at various protests and demonstrations around the world, and quickly racked up 10’s of millions of views/listens across social media and streaming platforms.

Smart’s latest release, Confessions of a CEO, is a potent batch of protest songs written with careful consideration of the oppression and inflicted suffering of both his neighbors, and those on the other side of the globe. Holding no punches, Confessions of a CEO takes on crooked politicians, police brutality, the healthcare system, wealth inequality, systemic racism, white supremacy, transphobia, xenophobia, colonialism, apartheid, climate change, and more.

For me, it’s all about New York streets. They’ve been immortalized in who knows how many songs and poems, movies and books, but even though I’ve spent years documenting them with my photography, I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding them than I was when I started. They are their own kind of art, and for a photographer, all you need to do is setup the shot and take it. I have lived in New York for only five years, but I have been a working, professional photographers for fifteen years now.

Street Scenes

You never know what you’ll find on the streets. And if you happen to be a photographer working in New York, that’s doubly true. I’ve had the good fortune to shoot all over the world, and when I come back to New York, I’m always reminded of why I started my career here.

The New York street scene is, for better or for worse, the street scene. It’s the one that is the most iconoclastic, and because of the backdrop of New York, it’s the one that I think people from just about anywhere imagine when they think of the idea of a street scene—whatever a “street scene” happens to be.

I created this album to showcase some of my favorite street scenes that I’ve captured in New York. This is nothing that I’ve done on contract or in my studio, just real life moments captured by me with my Mark III when I had some time to kick it around the city. I hope you like what you see. I did.