Aaron Hemens

Background

About Aaron Hemens

Aaron Hemens is an award-winning journalist and freelance photographer, currently working as a reporter with IndigiNews. He is of mixed Filipino and European ancestry, living in unceded syilx (Okanagan) territory in snpinktn (Penticton), Canada. His pictures and stories have been published in the Associated Press, the Canadian Press, the Globe and Mail, CBC, the Wall Street Journal, the Narwhal, the Tyee, HuffPost, APTN News, Inuvik Drum, and more. In 2025, he won gold in the Digital Publishing Awards' best news coverage for a community publication, for his three-part series on the Copper Mountain Mine's proposed expansion project. He also won gold in 2022 and 2023 at the Canadian Online Publishing Awards, with both achievements coming in the best photo-journalism category. He was named as a finalist for a Canadian Association of Journalists award in 2023, and for three Ma Murray Community News media awards in 2021. Aaron is an alumnus of Carleton University's School of Journalism, and was selected as the recipient of the Mitch Jacobson Memorial Award in Photo-Journalism in 2018. He was also a mentee in Room Up Front - a Canadian Photojournalism mentorship for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour - in its inaugural year in 2020. As of 2025, he is now a mentor for the program. He is available for both editorial and commercial freelance photography assignments.