This portfolio section represents single still photographs and picture stories from my 15 years as a newspaper photographer and those made while a Fulbright grantee in Mexico in 2008. Much of my documentary work has focused on issues of migration and immigration, including that of refugees.
To view picture stories and essays or selections of my portfolio use the buttons below.
The northern border with the United States is not the only destination for Mexican migrants. For millions, the bustling cities, which offer hopes of better jobs and education lure many from their traditional rural, and often indigenous communities. What they find in the cities is a mix of hope and hardship.
In the small town of Krupka, in northwest Czech Republic, on the border with Germany, lives Jožka Miker, a Roma activist who has taken it upon himself to mentor a group of teenage Roma boys, many from broken homes, who help him spread a message of acceptance through their rap and hip-hop music.
Two Haitian-born doctors at the University of Miami Medical School have been instrumental in the development of two very different approaches to the improvement of health care within Haiti throughout their careers. Dr. Michel Dodard has been working tirelessly since the earthquake with Project Medishare in efforts to set up and fund a high level trauma center in central Port-au-Prince to deal with the non-stop demand for high level of emergency care throughout the city. On the other side of the island, in Haiti’s second largest city, Cap-Haitien, Dr. Andre Vulcain has set up Haiti’s first family practice medical school which has been training young medical students to practice preventative and non-emergency medicine.
As her husband slips into dementia, a devoted wife confronts the question: Does love live in the heart or in the head?
The Age of Uncertainty Series explores issues of aging and those who cared for the elderly.
Michelle Hammer thought she found happiness just over three years ago when she married for the second time to Michael, who is 24 years older than she. Within a year of their marriage, Michael suffered an aneurysm before work one morning. From that day, Michelle has been his full-time caregiver.
The Age of Uncertainty Series explores issues of aging and those who cared for the elderly.
Though caring for the elderly is not what geriatrician Dr. Michael Camardi calls, "sexy medicine," he firmly believes it is one of the most important fields of medicine to understand our expanding aging population in the U.S.
The Age of Uncertainty Series explores issues of aging and those who cared for the elderly.
Doctors who make house calls are relatively rare; 1,400 in the country have house call-only practices. Dr. Alice Inouye is an even more singular breed: Equal parts ministry and medicine, her Jubilee Housecalls practice treats homebound patients who are nearing the end of life — and she often works without being paid.
The Age of Uncertainty Series explores issues of aging and those who cared for the elderly.
While southern Florida is well-known for its non-Mexican Latin roots that originate from South America or Cuba, Homestead is home to one of Florida's largest Mexican migrant communities, who work in the large fruit and vegetable farms that supply much of the northern U.S.'s produce during the winter months.
Robin Lee lives next door to her mother in the family's childhood home. When her mother needed help paying the bills, Robin took early retirement from the University of Miami and converted the home to a reverse mortgage to pay her mother's living expenses. What she didn't realize were the risks involved in reverse mortgages, and, something she could never have predicted, the economic downturn of 2007. Now both homes are in danger of foreclosure, and Robin, her adult children and siblings are doing everything in their power to keep them.
Josh Meltzer joined the faculty in the School of Photographic Arts & Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2015 as an Assistant Professor where he teaches photojournalism and multimedia storytelling, including interactive storytelling. Before coming to RIT, he was first a Photojournalist-in-Residence and then an Assistant Professor teaching similar courses in the School of Journalism & Broadcasting at Western Kentucky University. A native of Athens, Georgia, Josh is a 1995 graduate of Carleton College in Minnesota and received his Masters in Multimedia Communications from the University of Miami in 2013.
In 2008, after 9 years as a staff photographer and multimedia journalist at The Roanoke Times in Roanoke, Virginia, Josh accepted a Fulbright Scholarship to photograph and teach in Mexico where he began working on a project about the migration of indigenous families within Mexico. A selection of his work from his Fulbright year won the Grand Prize Professional Award from Photophilanthropy in 2010. He completed this project in 2014 as part of his Master’s Thesis while at the University of Miami.
He has been a co-coordinator and instructor with the Truth With A Camera workshops in Mexico, Ecuador and Bosnia and has served for several years on the staff of The Mountain Workshops since 2009.
His still and multimedia work has been recognized by the National Press Photographers Association’s (NPPA) Best of Photojournalism competition, where he was the 2006 Photojournalist of the Year for markets less than 115,000 circulation, Pictures of the Year International, which recognized a long-term project on those who care for the elderly with the Documentary of the Year award, KNPA, VNPA, Atlanta Photojournalism Competition, Northern and Southern Short Courses and the Society of Newspaper Design. He is also a recipient of the NPPA's Humanitarian Award in 2012 and is a 2014 recipient of the Carnegie Hero Award.
Copyright 2020 | Josh Meltzer