In the summer of 2008, half-way through journalism school, I took a job as a photography intern at a paper in the American South. For six months I combed the hills of eastern Tennessee for stories and photographs. It was a time of huge personal and creative growth, and an encounter with a culture that was almost as foreign to me as others I had seen on other continents. This series of images represent my attempt to capture the spirit of the communities I was documenting in the moment that I was there.