Born in 1967 in Tucson, Arizona, and raised in Ashland, Oregon, Jason's early love of photography was groomed on a Mamiya C330 twin-lens reflex. His first darkroom was in an upstairs closet of the family home which necessitated several trips up and down the stairs with buckets of water and chemicals. Jason moved on to more advanced technology at the University of Oregon, where he earned a four-year degree in photography in 1989. Following graduation, Jason worked as a photographic assistant and printer for some of the Bay Area's greatest photographers, including Ruth Bernhard, Arthur Tress, and Michael Kenna, who became a lifelong mentor and friend.

Jason's work appears regularly in the literary journal The Sun and he has been profiled and made appearances in many publications such as American Photo, Black and White, Life, Photo Metro, Popular Photography, Time, Inc. and Vanity Fair. Corporate collections such as The Gap/Banana Republic have begun to collect his works and he has had several exhibitions since 1990.

Now living in Portland, Oregon, Jason Langer is an instructor in fine art photography at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.