The Small Village New Mexico project (SVNM) was created as a Documentary Photography teaching tool, for my advanced photojournalism class at New Mexico State University.
I have been cruising the small villages of New Mexico for over forty years. I wanted my students to get out of the classroom, learn to work with people they do not know, learn the “etiquette” of working with people they do not know who are in their home spaces, work with the light and the reality of somewhere they had never been and to, generally, work on making images that have a historical/sociological, anthropological value.
I think it has worked well in achieving these goals.
For me, though, as I approach my last years at NMSU, the small villages I’ve plowed for these past decades are still a treasure for my heart. I continue to shoot and will as long as I can.
There is value in continuity.