Visual Storytelling Lab

Register open for a FREE program for NM–based veterans and service members.

Apply by 11:59 PM MT on March 5, 2026.

CENTER invites members of the military, veterans, or their family members to create a photo project in the Visual Storytelling Lab. The program provides participants with one-on-one coaching to learn visual storytelling techniques. Participants will learn from Heather Mattera about creating an image-based series, including editing, sequencing, and developing project statements. The focus on the photographic series and long-form narrative can utilize existing or new images, data, and related memorabilia to consolidate memories and elevate them into project form.

Any person at any point in their photographic practice, from beginners to professionals, can create a project and elevate their image-making. At the end, CENTER will create online galleries for program participants, promote the projects on social media channels, and publish work in our e-newsletter to help their story reach a wider audience. The Lab provides customized, one-on-one guidance, as well as group interactions for taking and selecting images to create a project significant to the participant.

SCHEDULE (subject to change)
March 11 – Group session 1 – Introductions and overview of the Lab.
Week of March 9-15 – One-on-ones (one 45-minute meeting per person)
March 30-April 5 – One-on-ones
April 22 – Group session 2 - Project Statement seminar
May 4-9 – One-on-ones
May 29 – Group Meeting 3
June 17 – Final check-in and wrap-up

WHO CAN REGISTER • New Mexico-based veterans, active-duty service members, reservists, National Guard members, or their caregivers. Any camera or device can be used to capture imagery. Computer and Zoom access is required.

Heather Mattera • Photographer

Heather Mattera has spent much of her life helping marginalized individuals feel seen, heard, and understood, and her photographic work centers on the complexities and tenderness of human relationships. An Internationally award-winning photographer and mother of two sons, she has exhibited widely, including “Nomad’s Breathe” with Geste Gallery in Paris, “Forever Happy” with Fotofestival Lenzberg in Switzerland, A Love Letter to Nature with Photo Vogue in Milan, The Weight of It All in Minneapolis (2023), and Open Walls at the Rencontres d’Arles photo festival (2020).

Through her collaborations with non-profits, she supports at-risk youth, unhoused teens, foster families, women with eating disorders, and families facing terminal illness in creating new and empowering personal narratives. She founded a global scholarship program for emerging photographers and a mentorship initiative that connects students with subsidized professional mentors. Earlier in her career, Heather worked as a published, licensed therapist, developing an outpatient PTSD treatment program and therapeutic art initiative for the Veterans Administration while facilitating individual and group therapy across several inpatient psychiatric units.