Sunny Mays is much like her name: vibrant, happy and….well, sunny. She believes that the best memories are made in the simplest moments. As a family and travel photographer and videographer, she strives to capture the emotion and singularity of each point in time and each new place. Her work is inspired by her own family; together with her husband of eighteen years, she is raising four children among the towering oak trees and winding creeks of North Texas. Sunny and her family love to explore and travel the world just as much as they appreciate staying home and enjoying ordinary family life. In her family sessions and films, she is passionate about capturing her subjects’ genuine personalities in their most comfortable places. Travel films have provided Sunny a new way of documenting the unexpected, unvarnished and unique details that make our world worth exploring with a camera in hand, which is why we asked her to teach on filmmaking (specifically travel films) inside the Academy.

For more inspiration from Sunny:

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You can now learn about Filmmaking (specifically creating Travel Films) from Sunny inside the Academy. Join us.

Here is Sunny, Unraveled…

What inspires your art?

Life! Life inspires everything I do. I want to document everything, not just for myself, but my children and their future children as well. I want to not only remember the big moments, but the seemingly small, everyday moments that later become the most cherished memories.

What do you shoot with?

Camera body and favorite lens? I have shot with my Canon 5D, mark iii for as long as I can remember. Favorite lenses? I have so many but all for different reasons. For travel films, my favorites are undoubtedly my Tokina 16-28 f/2.8 and Canon 24-70 f/2.8L II USM

What other ways do you express your creativity?

Other than photography and videgraphy, I love to sew, do art projects with the kids and have a passion for decorating.

How do you de-stress at the end of the day?

With snuggles from my family followed by a glass of wine with my husband once the kids go to bed.

What kind of music do you listen to while editing?

I’m constantly prowling through my favorite music licensing sources for video, making lists of favorite songs. This makes picking music so much easier and faster when I have a new film project.

What is your favorite book?

Gosh, just one favorite? That’s too hard! I love curling up with a great suspense novel when time permits. For creative inspiration, I found Big Magic really good.

Name one movie that inspires you.

Again, just ONE?! I can’t. I will say since getting into videography, I love anything with super creative cinematography. I find myself wanting to watch those movies over and over to study what they did to make the storyline so great. I’m also a sucker for great documentaries. I’m pretty sure that makes me a nerd, but that’s ok.

How you handle self-doubt or creative slumps?

I switch gears. This happens to everyone! For me, I find I’ll usually get burned out in one specific area, like photo OR video but rarely both at the same time. When this happens, I just focus on the other as a creative release. However, every now and then I’ll hit a BIG slump and take a mental break for about a month or so. I find when I do this, I come back re-energized and my work usually takes it’s biggest leaps after these brief down times. Classes to help me learn something new also always help give me a needed kick start during these times.

What has been the most difficult part of your creative journey?

The natural tendency to compare myself, my work to others. It can be easy to get caught up in another’s success and suddenly feel inadequate. Or to get caught up in someone who’s seemingly rocking the latest editing trend. Once I realized who I was as an artist, what my style is and stuck to my own way of doing things (as opposed to chasing other’s), I gained so much peace and happiness within my own work. Ironically, that’s also the time I started getting the recognition I so wanted in my earlier years such as being published and winning awards. ...Funny how that all works.

Who is one of your favorite photographers?

Just ONE? Oh gosh, there are so many I love following for so many different reasons. I guess right now I soak up everything from Kyla Ewert, Lindsay Davis and Kelly Bell. I love the way each of them brilliantly capture uncontrived moments with their own creative spins. (Sorry… if you can’t tell, I can’t pick just one of anything!)