OVERDUE
Move It On Over... Ten female action sports photographers you should know.
words :: Jessy Braidwood
INSET Celeste Pomerantz, vintage tuck. MAIN Kajsa Larsson, Whistler backcountry. PORTRAIT MASON MASHON
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JESSY BRAIDWOOD
Most action sport imagery is shot by dudes. And it’s time to change that. Even the most inspiring images, if produced through only one lens or one avenue of perspective, ultimately fail to represent the full spectrum of human experience. I don’t say this in a girl power, rah-rah-rah, strong-woman way (gag!), I mean it in a normal, human being way. The dudes are amazing, but they’re all dudes. I know (and love/respect/am in awe of) a lot of these dudes. I’ve spent the last 12 years on the other side of the lens working as a professional action sport model/athlete. I’ve also been shooting photos for the past few years and every time—every single time—I show a photo I’m excited about to a woman, the response is some version of “Hell yes! Exactly, THIS!” The photographic standard in adventure sport has been set by and for the male perspective. There have been outliers, but this single-perspective representation reaches far beyond athletes and photographers and up into the world of marketing agencies, team mangers, brand CEOs, magazine publishers, and beyond. It’s a boys’ club—it always has been, and it still is. Which is understandable—it’s easy and comfortable and natural to work with people we know, or want to know, or people who know people we know. This isn’t wrong or right; it’s just how it is. So let’s change it, by doing the same thing. The following pages feature some of the incredible female photographers I want to know, because I connect to and am