At the beginning of 2022, I had the opportunity to intern with the Canadian Mental Health Association - Edmonton region. I entered this internship while pitching a project, to “humanize” their social media page, i.e., add faces to the company—whether that be employees or their distress line volunteers (these images are a mix of both).
There were many challenges in this experience: finding willing subjects, emailing back and forth to set up photography dates, finding locations (whether that be in the building, or going for a mental health walk and combining street photography), and most importantly -> learning about and connecting to my photography clientele in the brief periods I had to interact with them! These individuals are remarkable in their own ways: one was applying to become a doctor in Canada (had their doctorate from another country); another was walking down a similar, yet adjacent, path that I was going; while another had previously modeled, yet at that time, they were solely doing HR work for around 100 employees (actual number slightly higher, likely ~120)!
