We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Josh Neufeld. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Josh below.

Josh , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I photographed the last 19 days of my Dad’s life. I had been planning to create a photo project about facing our mortality and after brainstorming the idea with my dad and him giving the idea for the name, he ironically became the subject. After sharing that essay on my website, so many people reached out and shared their own story of loss, life and love and I found a lot of comfort in the shared experience. I went on to build a website called Grief Narratives. It’s a community resource for those to share and read stories of grief and loss, and hopefully, find the similar comfort in the communion.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a Vancouver based commercial photographer with a heart for documentary and photojournalism. Clients come to me when they need portraiture, marketing content for campaigns or projects and documentary work. I have on-going work with a non-profit based in Vancouver called Gathering Voices Society. I have been documenting an indigenous led wildfire management program they have been building for 5 years now. My work is incredibly diverse and it’s something I love it about. I get to learn and experience so much about so many different aspects of life. I’m constantly curious so picking up a camera felt like a way to help satiate my need for learning.

I started my journey with a camera in the backcountry of British Columbia shooting landscapes. It’s my happy place and decided to sell fine art prints of these areas.

In 2020 I also launched a yoga mat line with my landscape photography designed on to the mats. I created a 4 part series: Mountain, Water, Forest and Sunset, and do limited runs within in each series constantly creating new designs. It’s one of my happiest little entrepreneurial endeavours.

I also created a Grief Photography Workshop for a hospice society and now facilitate these workshops. Since losing my dad, most of the personal photography projects I’ve created have been around grief and loss and in 2020 a hospice society reached out and asked me to build a workshop for them. It’s something I’m most proud of.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

It sort of happened by accident, but one particular part of my journey has become understanding and translating the way the different people process grief. I hope that by creating projects around that topic, people will feel more capable in processing their own grief and find a sense a comfort in the communion.

A more general goal is to learn as much as I can about any and every aspect of life. It’s why I decided to build a career in photography, and learn to use the camera as a tool. The direction you can take with it can always evolve and so I want to make sure that I make creative space to be able to allow that.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

Beyond being hired to shoot, I sell a line of yoga mats, fine art prints and also facilitate Grief Photography Workshops.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.joshneufeldphotography.com, www.griefnarratives.com
• Instagram: @joshneufeldphoto, @thisiswhywelivehere, @griefnarratives
• Facebook: Josh Neufeld Photography
• Linkedin: Josh Neufeld