Small town photos

When I asked some students to collect photos of Cape May County that would help us understand the place at a depper level, we still got a fair number of pictures of the lighthouse and the destinations. It is just so hard to ignore the beaches and classic views, but we have fewer examples of how the gas stations and community centers look. What is the place really like? I often find my photosets suffer the limitations.

So I was pretty jazzed to find this collection of photos of Southwestern towns. Rather than highlighting the photogenic side of each town, "teofilo" (from Highland Park!) seems more interested in capturing the real sense of these places. For instance, I was in Aztec for just a few hours this summer, but these images of Aztec feel more like I remember it than tourist photos might. Some might just be the volume, but much of it is a willingness to focus on the little things that casual viewers otherwise consider mundane. I think our planning and design students would do well to figure out how to better capture the authenticity of places rather than only focusing on great composition and perfect sunlight.