George Tenney may be the perfect definition of a national photographer. A California native, Tenney has bounced around the country for most of his life, with prolonged stays in New Jersey and Arizona. Recently relocating to the Phoenix area, Tenney continues to service his clients in New Jersey and the East Coast market at large. Spending approximately one week back East every month, he says, “I can still be the local guy in New Jersey, too.”
©George Tenney
Tenney became hooked on photography after high school, and is primarily self-taught. In 1991, a friend was working as a photojournalist for a small paper in Southern California, and soon called Tenney with a job offer. Tenney accepted, and eventually moved within the corporation to shoot for a sister publication in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. “I worked pretty hard as a photojournalist out there,” he recalls. “That was a real crash course in photography, being the only photographer at the daily. I kind of learned how to tell stories with images back then. That was something very career-shaping for me. I still approach things the same way and a lot of the questions I ask to figure out what works and what doesn’t kind of come from that on-the-job training I got back then.”