We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aden May a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aden, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I learned through Tulsa Technical College with the photography program that they offer juniors and seniors in high school. its a two year course. I had know for a few years that photography was a huge interest of mine, and decided to take the class last second. As in I got in by more or less a miracle because the class had been filled already for the fall semester but for some reason a student had to drop the class a few days before school was going to start, and I got in. I had some knowledge of the basic rules such as the rule of thirds and other basic composition rules. In hindsight I should’ve just forgot everything I knew and started over fresh. i didn’t and I quickly realized I know absolutely NOTHING in the realm of photography and how to create a good image on the technical side. It took me about a month to realize this and then I was humbled by my teacher. I had turned in a photo that I thought was amazing and so did the few friends I had in the class. I went up to present and spoke about how i shot it. Once i had finished my teacher looked at it and listed 3 to 5 reasons the photo more or less stunk and that i needed to think through my photos more. I was embarrassed but from that point on I knew I had to give the teacher photos that would knock her socks off. the next presentation we had a week later, the same thing happened, but worse because I had put more work and effort into it. All the effort i had put in wasn’t that much but at the time It was a lot. I had used every tool i knew and still couldn’t get her to admit my photos were good or even if they were good. this is more or less same pattern happened until the second to last month of school for that year when i decided to no longer try and impress her and just shoot what i thought looked cool. It was a shot of a foggy lake and a dock that was just erie and empty, but I thought the photo was just such a cool perspective because I haven’t seen anybody shoot like that in my class yet. Low and behold this is the photo she finally thought was good and not just good. This is the photo that ended up on her wall for a year along with an architecture shot that I took of the building that the class was in. Throughout the whole time of me, struggling to impress her I was learning new Photoshop techniques that nobody in my class had even heard of and spending all of my spare time just playing around in Photoshop and Lightroom with my previous photos that I shot on my own time. Looking back now that is the reason why I finished second in my class for my Photoshop certification test in the second year of the corse. I could’ve just stopped trying to impress her but i didn’t. i think that she is the reason I am still learning and loving to learn about my passion. Mrs. Simons if you read this thank you for being hard on me. I wouldn’t be where i am in my photography career without it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

hello, my name is Aden May. I’m the photographer behind. Amp_photography_Tulsa. Im an Eagle Scout, and just general outdoors lover.

My main focus of shooting right now is showing people the landscapes that we have just shortly out of town. I want to show the world what nature can really look like in kind of the same way Ansel Adams did but
less mountains, and more streams and waterways. I grew up sailing on lake Erie with my grandparents. The water has always been a rather big part of my life. And it is the key to life period. Without it, we wouldn’t exist nor would anything. So I think it’s rather important to show that there are still gorgeous waterways just 30 minutes out of town. My end goal is to show that humans are impacting nature in negative ways and that it can be saved and still be stunning. Im no environmentalist by any means, but I’d like to think my photos could someday help. Im currently moving from where i’ve lived my entire life and once i get to where im going i want to start a photo series on pollution in the water and inform people about the dangers of pollution. Im not exactly sure on how im going to do it but I will be a helping hand in this world.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me would probably be the final edit. Not even posting it or anything simply the final edit of any photo. Every single one of my photos I take I try and tell a story with whether it’s a coherent one or not it’s a story nonetheless. I enjoy getting to put my creative touch on the way our world looks. My following is a very big on Instagram so I don’t get much feedback but that’ll change one day.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

my goals with photography are mainly to show the impact of pollution and how it is affecting the ecosystems, and to show people that our world is absolutely stunning in so many more ways than people think. I want to simply show how the world is and how we impact it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: AMP_Photography_Tulsa
• Facebook: AMP_Photography_Tulsa
• Linkedin: Aden Mays Photography

Image Credits
All shoy by me Aden May