Aaron Huey (born 1975) is an American photographer, explorer, activist, and storyteller. He is known for his work as a photographer with National Geographic, for whom he has shot many magazine features on a diverse array of subjects from adventure, to war, to wildlife. Aaron is the founder of the Amplifier Foundation, a design lab that builds art to amplify the voices of grassroots movements. He was the architect and design director for the non-profit art project “We The People,” that flooded the streets of Donald Trump’s Inauguration and the International Women's March in 2017.
Photography
In 2002, Aaron Huey walked 3,349 miles with his dog, Cosmo, across America, recording the experience with photographs and journal entries. From the snapshots of him and his dog, to the traditionally articulated, even poetic documentary photography of people all across the country, the walk took 154 days. The photo essay for the trip was published in the Smithsonian magazine.
Huey set out to do a project on poverty in America in 2005. The project transitioned into a seven-year documentary about the Oglala Lakota of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In 2011, Huey was named contributing editor and photographer at Harper's magazine, and only the second photographer in the magazine's 170-year-old masthead. Traveling back and forth from the reservation, and during a yearlong John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, Huey was able to distill his experiences and work on possible solutions to his journalistic representation.
Activism
Huey's extensive work documenting the poverty and issues of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation gained wider recognition in 2010 with his talk at TEDxDU at the University of Denver, titled “America's Native Prisoners of War.” The talk was selected to run on Ted.com which gave it global exposure. It outlines the precarious and often violent relationship between the United States government and the people of the Sioux Nation, the history of their treaties, and the effect it has had on the descendants of both parties.
In 2011, as a result of his TED talk, he began collaborating with the street artist Shepard Fairey, known to most for his creation of the Obama HOPE campaign image, and Ernesto Yerena in a street art campaign called “Honor The Treaties.” Huey installed a large mural that states “The Black Hills Are Not For Sale,” at the intersection of Ogden and the highly trafficked Melrose Avenue in West Los Angeles near Fairfax. All in the same year, Aaron strategized on the thought of using art for social change which became the grounds for his non-profit organization, The Amplifier Foundation. The foundation includes a portfolio of photographers and artists advocating around criminal justice reform, the environment and the reclaiming of the American narrative. In 2012, the street art collaboration for awareness was filmed by director Eric Becker and later became a film that won 'Best Short Documentary' at the 9th Annual Red Nation Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Working closely with the people of the Sioux Nation at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, he collaborated with Jonathan Harris, founder of Cowbird, a participatory journalism and storytelling website. They developed a plan to help the Oglala Lakota tell their own stories, in their own words, and with their own photos. National Geographic asked Huey to shoot a story specifically for the magazine that appeared as the cover story in the August 2012 issue. Huey became the 2013 winner of the Galen Rowell Award. The award is given to an “adventurer whose artistic passion illuminates the wild places of the world, and whose accomplishments significantly benefit both the environment and the peoples who inhabit these lands and regions.”
In 2014, Aaron Huey created and launched “The Sherpa Fund,” which raised over $424,000 in 8 days for families of victims of the avalanche that swept 16 indigenous climbers to their death on Mount Everest. Alongside nine other photographers, the fund has hopes to build a more comprehensive safety net for the high-altitude workers who help so many Westerners realize their dreams of reaching the summit.