Jen Edney’s motto, “Have Camera, Will Travel,” has led her to such places as Fiji, Suriname, Australia, and Cape Town. She estimates that 10 months of the year is spent traveling with her lens focused on the people of the world.
“My camera and my subject have served as my compass,” explains Edney, “leading me around the world, observing and documenting incredible people with even more incredible stories.” And though she has been to over 30 countries in the past three years, her favorite spot on earth is a little closer to home: her grandmother’s cabin on a lake in Minnesota. “It’s the one place in my life I can truly relax and enjoy time with my family,” she owns.
Edney grew up in Omaha, the daughter of John and Pat Edney and sister to two brothers, Chris and Matt, also her twin. She attended Marian High School and then pursued a degree in Graphic Design and Visual Journalism at Creighton University. Her introduction to photography came at her father’s side on a family trip. He taught her exposure and the rule of thirds—eschewing the urge to center your subject—amidst Ireland’s verdant rolling hills and ancient stone walls.
After an internship with renowned nature photographer Tom Mangelsen (also from Omaha) in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Edney attended the Brooks Institute of Photography in Ventura, Calif. She worked at the Ventura County Star while in school. It was an assignment for the newspaper that ironically led to her current career as a freelance photojournalist. Edney was photographing a 16-year-old who set out to be the youngest person to sail around the world. The assignment turned into a school project, which prompted Edney’s instructor to urge her to leave school to focus on the story. Thus, her life as a freelancer began.
She recalls her dad’s advice to “never leave home without duct tape, a knife, or a flashlight,” when she heads out to parts unknown, unfazed by how often his advice has served her well. After all, Edney is not in a climate-controlled portrait studio, photographing high school seniors in their band and cheerleading uniforms. More often than not, she is aboard a sailing vessel capturing captain and crew struggling with masts or treading against the current in an effort to get a water-level shot of a boat in action.
Recently, Edney was in Newport, R.I., shooting the America’s Cup Series Event. She had the notion of photographing a boat from a fish’s point of view and convinced the skipper of Energy Team France to sail over her while she captured an AC45’s underside on film. “No problem! We sail over you!” skipper Loick Peyron gamely agreed. It was the first time Edney had butterflies before a shoot.
“Keep calm and carry on? No thanks, I’d rather raise hell and change the world,” asserts Edney. It’s this throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude that has earned Edney the nickname “Shark Bait,” and allowed her to build a body of work that has graced the pages of the LA Times, Coastal Living, and YACHT Magazine, as well as the small screen on ESPN, ABC’s Primetime, and CBS Sports.
“I don’t consider it a good day at the office unless I get wet, dirty, or almost run over by a boat!”