About Me

I’m Brandon Jarvis, a photojournalist and video production specialist who has built a career out of chasing stories, both in the field and behind the scenes.

My journey began in 2017 when I started storm chasing with nothing more than curiosity and a basic camera. Experienced chasers Emily Pike and Ryan Cartee took me under their wing, and by 2018 I was selling live streams and footage of tornadoes, hurricanes, and their aftermath through Live Storms Media. While capturing the raw power of storms was exciting, what truly hooked me was documenting the human impact, standing in the middle of a devastated town, listening to survivors, and showing the world how lives and communities had been changed.

That same year, during Hurricane Florence, I crossed paths with WeatherNation field correspondent Ben McMillan. I offered to drive him around Topsail Island, NC, and we spent the day covering the storm together, doing live hits and look-lives, and building a connection that would later play a major role in my career.

By 2019, I knew I wanted to become a full-time photojournalist. With only storm and damage footage in my portfolio, I applied to networks for nine months without a single callback. Then, in early 2020, a post in the “Storytellers” Facebook group caught the attention of Rich, the Chief Photographer at ABC Columbia in South Carolina. He brought me on, and there I learned to shoot sports, cover local news, and edit packages with stronger pacing and storytelling.

In 2021, Ben McMillan called with an offer to join him as his camera operator for WeatherNation. I moved to Arizona, and for eight months we traveled the country covering severe weather, often going live with nothing more than an iPhone. While living there, I launched a Facebook page called First Response Media with my friend Debacca, better known as “Chewy” like in Star Wars. We worked the overnight shift from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., monitoring Phoenix fire dispatch and responding to shootings, stabbings, fires, and major vehicle accidents. Our goal was to raise community awareness through our video coverage and eventually sell footage to local networks. On my last day in Arizona, I did just that, covering a tragic incident where a Polaris RZR had overturned in a canal, resulting in the drowning of a child.

After storm season, Ben asked if I wanted to join him to see how WeatherNation’s sister network, Real America’s Voice, operated and to lend a hand with production. My first assignment was the Save America Freedom Bus Tour in McAllen, Texas, at the border wall. I started the day building bar stools, then moved on to setting up cameras, constructing the set, and battling extreme heat, wind, and fire ants.

That experience led to freelance work, and about six months later it became my full-time job. From there, I traveled nationwide covering elections, Trump rallies, Turning Point USA events, CPAC, high profile trials, and man on the street interviews. I assisted in building mobile sets, ran multi camera shoots, and adapted to whatever challenges came my way.

For me, the draw has always been the unknown. Any given day could bring history in the making, someone’s best moment, or their worst. No matter the story, I bring focus, creativity, and the drive to make every frame count.