Teen photographer Maryum Shadeed captured these two smiling guys during her participation in a recent Photovoice project organized by the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Adolescent Health. Though the idea is simple—“Put a camera in the hands of the person you want to work with and ask them to document their environment and the issues they want to see,” says Beth Marshall, the center’s assistant director—the goal is more ruminative. For this weeklong Photovoice project in July, photographer André Chung worked with 11 East Baltimore students ages 15–19 and asked them to explore well-being, what that means and looks like as a person, and where they live. Shadeed captioned the photo, “Baltimore youth at Patterson Park enjoying recreational activity with each other.” This project is part of a larger study involving the Center for Adolescent Health, the Urban Health Institute, and AstraZeneca; the study explores adolescent well-being in vulnerable environments and is taking place in Baltimore; Delhi, India; Ibadan, Nigeria; Johannesburg, South Africa; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Shanghai, China.

Photo by Maryum Shadeed