Move It On Over...

Six female action sports photographers you should know.

words :: 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!” jessy braidwood

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 managers, 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 inspired by the way they see the mountains, the ocean and sport—and how their friends spend time there. And their photographic visions are different.. To me, it’s a difference in feeling, in vision, in vulnerability and connection. And this is where the beauty lies, especially when women photograph other women. For all my years in front of the camera, I only ever shot with one woman (shout out Robin O’Neill!), but I remember how it felt, and I am seeing the same thing now that I’m behind the camera—it’s about being captured and seen for who you are, not as a prop, token or unnatural, out-of-context sexual entity.

Women add value to the outdoor world through their unique experiences. They can see the same strong action or inspiring environments and shoot them in a completely different way. This is what makes art great, is it not? The fresh look, the hot take, the new way of seeing a familiar and loved thing so that it opens our souls and breaks our perceptions of what is—and what can be.

But don’t take my word for it, check out these next few pages and see for yourself.

HOMEBASE Whistler

SHOOTING SINCE 2019

INSTAGRAM @jessybraidwood

“My theory is that women have had to shoot ‘conventionally’ (clean, crisp, focusing on the action) to be taken seriously. And now we are starting to shoot however the hell we want. Which is amazing.”