About Jaison & Callie Sterling

Jaison and Callie Sterling have been building businesses together for more than 15 years. What started in 2010 with two college students and a small idea eventually became two successful photography businesses, a global sports photography brand and an audience of more than 5.6 million people. But the story of Rock Town Media doesn’t really begin with Rock Town. It begins with Sterling Imageworks.

While attending the University of Central Arkansas, Jaison was studying filmmaking and Callie was studying broadcast journalism. In 2010, they started Sterling Imageworks while they were still in college. What began as a small photography business quickly grew into something much larger. Over the years, they photographed hundreds of weddings, families, newborns and seniors, building a successful photography business that continues today. Sterling Imageworks became the foundation of everything that followed, giving Jaison and Callie the experience, relationships and business knowledge that would eventually allow Rock Town Media to grow.

Along the way, sports photography became an increasingly important part of Jaison’s work. From 2012 through 2018, he also freelanced for the local newspaper (NLR Times), photographing high school sports throughout central Arkansas. The newspaper gave him the opportunity to photograph countless games, work with coaches and athletes, and develop the dramatic style that would eventually become synonymous with his sports work.

Then, at the beginning of the 2018 football season, the newspaper closed.

Jaison still wanted to photograph high school sports, so he created Rock Town Media to continue doing exactly that. At the time, there was no grand plan to build a large brand or media company. Rock Town was simply a new home for the sports photography that had previously been published through Sterling Imageworks. Over time, the sports shoots, games and team photography gradually moved under the Rock Town name while Sterling Imageworks continued doing what it had always done so well.

For several years, Rock Town was simply another part of the business. It wasn’t an overnight success, and it certainly wasn’t an immediate financial success. Jaison continued photographing sports while Callie continued running and growing the businesses they had built together. Rock Town was growing, but neither of them could have predicted what was about to happen.

In 2021, Callie had an idea that would completely change the trajectory of the company: TikTok.

She encouraged Jaison to create an account and show people what happened behind the scenes of his photography. Instead of simply posting the finished image, he began showing the process — the lighting, the effects, the smoke, the unusual setups and, perhaps most importantly, the reactions of the athletes seeing their photographs for the first time.

The third video Jaison posted received more than 300,000 views.

That was the beginning of something neither of them expected.

People weren’t just interested in the photographs. They wanted to know how they were made. They wanted to see what happened behind the camera and understand how an ordinary gym, field or studio could be transformed into something completely different. The videos began reaching people far beyond Arkansas, and eventually far beyond the sports photography community itself.

Rock Town exploded.

Videos began generating millions of views, with some eventually reaching tens of millions and multiple videos surpassing 100 million views. What had started as a way to continue photographing high school sports had suddenly become a global audience.

And then the questions started coming.

“How did you make that?”

“What lights did you use?”

“What camera settings?”

“How did you get that effect?”

The audience wasn’t just interested in seeing the finished photograph. They wanted to learn how to create it themselves.

That opened an entirely new chapter for Rock Town Media.

Jaison began teaching the techniques behind his work through online education, workshops, private trainings, editing tips, posing guides and behind-the-scenes content. Photography education became a major part of the business, allowing photographers around the world to learn the same lighting techniques, creative processes and approaches that Jaison had developed over years of shooting.

Today, Rock Town Media has become much more than a sports photography business. It is a photography, education and media brand with a global audience of more than 5.6 million followers across YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. Jaison’s work has taken him from local high school gyms and football fields to national sporting events and major opportunities, including ESPN’s coverage of the Women’s Final Four.

But despite the size of the audience, the heart of the business remains much simpler.

Callie has been part of every stage of the story. She helped start Sterling Imageworks while the two were still in college, photographed hundreds of weddings, families, newborns and seniors, and continues to photograph for Sterling Imageworks today. She manages the business side of Rock Town Media and handles the countless details that allow Jaison to spend his time photographing, creating content, and teaching.

And it was Callie who suggested TikTok in the first place!

The success of Rock Town also hasn’t replaced Sterling Imageworks. The two businesses simply evolved in different directions.

Sterling Imageworks remains a successful photography business and the foundation on which everything was built.

 

At the center of both businesses is the same philosophy: create photographs that matter.

For Rock Town, that means giving athletes an experience and photographs that make them feel like stars. It doesn’t matter whether the athlete is playing professionally, competing at the college level, or stepping onto a high school field or into a Little League game. Jaison believes they all deserve the same level of creativity and attention.

That idea is ultimately what has driven Rock Town from the beginning.

The company wasn’t created to become a social media giant. It was created because a local newspaper closed and Jaison wanted to keep photographing sports. It wasn’t immediately profitable, and there was no guarantee it would become anything more than a small sports photography brand.

More than a decade after starting their first business together, Jaison and Callie are still doing what they’ve always done — building something together.

Sterling Imageworks continues to capture weddings, families, newborns and seniors. Rock Town Media continues to photograph athletes, teach photographers and create content for a global audience.

The businesses have changed. The audience has changed. The scale has changed. But the partnership hasn’t.

It started with two college students in 2010. It became Sterling Imageworks.

Sterling Imageworks became the foundation for Rock Town Media.

A newspaper closing created the opportunity.

A TikTok idea changed everything.

And today, millions of people know the name Rock Town Media.

Behind it are still the same two people who started it all.

Jaison and Callie Sterling.