Listen to My Pictures – Foto Class – Guadalajara, Mexico from Josh Meltzer on Vimeo.

Just finished putting together this video story about the kids that are in my photo class.  We have our final show opening at the Museo Regional tomorrow, Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in Guadalajara, México.

Set up and the opening for a show of my work from this year opened last night at the Museo Ex-Convento.   Many friends, strangers, contacts, and even some of the kids in my class came to the opening, which made me feel very good.  Jose Hernandez-Claire gave me a very nice welcome speech, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to get to know him this year.

The show is open from now through July 16, 2009 daily except Mondays.

After nearly seven months of teaching a weekly photo class to a group adolescents here in Guadalajara, the students turned in their Canon cameras and we had our final edit for an upcoming show.  We narrowed down 16,803 images shot by 19 students ages 11-16 to a small group of 50 photographs that are being printed and framed as I write.

I’m currently editing a video about the class and our experiences, that will be posted on the class’ website www.joshmeltzer.com/ltmp/ltmp.html soon as well as projected at the museum.

I would like to make an open invitation to attend the show, June 24 2009 at the Museo Regional in Guadalajara’s historic downtown at 7:30 p.m.  The U.S. consulate is coming on board as a sponsor, and the kids and I are really excited to show our work to the city.  We have promises from a newspaper and main television station here to make interviews with the kids to help promote the show.

Today was the posada (holiday party) for CODENI, where nearly all of the kids and their families gathered at a restaurant downtown to celebrate the end of the year, receive certificates and finally break down a piñata.

We have one more week in Mexico before returning to “middle North America” for a few week vacation to see family and friends, and have a lot to do before heading home.

Above are images of the photography class at last week’s CODENI soccer game and this week’s class.  For the past three classes, we’ve been using my cameras and those of the other volunteers to make our images.  We are very lucky to have the support of local professional photographers Jose Hernandez Claire,  Jorge Hernandez, and Humberto Muñiz at the classes.  We hope that some of the other interested volunteers will be able to fit in a visit to our class when their schedules permit.

This week, the cameras from Listen to My Pictures arrived at the U.S. Consulate, and I spent a full afternoon changing settings to Spanish, charging batteries, and labeling them for the class on Saturday.

We had a great attendance in class where we critiqued the last few weeks of images talking about lighting, composition, moments, and layering.  Super-volunteer, Jorge Hernández, Missy and I took turns going over the students’ images.  After a 10 minute run-through of the basic auto functions on the new cameras and some very important care instructions, we headed out to a nearby plaza to make our first images on the new Canons.

The kids quickly spread out, using their newly-learned skills to take images of people selling goods, church icons, and details of objects tossed away on the ground.  Just as we were heading back to the office, a wedding let out, and much to the surprise to the bride and groom, they were greeted at the door of the church with 9 kid photographers in addition to their hired wedding photographer.  I suppose every couple has to have something memorable from their wedding, and for them, it will be a photo class full press attack.

I don’t remember the first time I ever saw the Internet, however I do remember attempting to introduce my Great Uncle Patti to the Internet a few years ago at his home in Florida.  Unfortunately, he was more interested in the small green power light on the side of the laptop than the actual Internet for some reason that day.

Missy and I have been working for about a month and a half with a group of women and men here in Guadalajara, who are forming a cooperative of Otomi artisans, to eventually sell their beautiful products worldwide.  The women, who are indigenous Otomi from the central Mexican state of Querétaro, sell homemade potato chips in the city center, but are highly skilled weavers and embroiderers.
On each of their bi-weekly meetings, I have been shooting hundreds of pictures and recording several hours of video, and Missy has begun designing a beautiful website for the group, which we got to show off this past week.  Not only was this the first time the group had ever seen the Internet, but they got to see it on a site about themselves.  I also realized they may be some of the few people in the world that skipped web 1.0 and started with 2.0.
Missy made a short presentation to the group, who seemed to love the logo for the site, called MNINI, which is the name of a gathering place in their Pueblo, and giggled while watching their video interviews.  We have a lot of work left on the site, including more photography, video, design and information gathering, but it is well on its way.
Above is a video of our presentation of the site to them.

Saturday was the first day of the much anticipated photography class.  Out of our initial list of 16 students we had 8 show up, which is a good turnout for the first class, on a Saturday afternoon.  Several of the kids who weren’t there had previous committments, so we’re hoping for an even stronger showing this weekend for Class #2.  Still waiting on my computer cable from the local MAC store here to use my Mac to project images, so we used Danielle’s computer and the CODENI projector which worked wonderfully.

Many thanks go out to our volunteers who showed up and even broght their own photos and ice-breaker exercises to share with the students.  We’re very anxious to receive the cameras in a few weeks from Listen to My Pictures, and I heard today that they’ve all been ordered.  Thanks to volunteer Jorge Hernandez who bought great enthusiasm and a fun icebreaker where we cutout T-shirts and wrote our promises for the class.  Everyone shared their promises to come on time, work hard, and honor and protect the equipment.

Newspaper photographer Humberto Muñiz from Público shared his amazing photographs from documentary projects on people living in the streets of Guadalajara with the children, as well as made a great explanation on the fundamentals of true documentary work, which is what the kids will be doing once they get the cameras in hand soon.  He even told us that there was interest from the newspaper to publish the kids’ work at the end of the course.

At the end we spent a half hour using my three cameras to shoot portraits of each other and a few of two guys sitting on the stoop next door drinking Squirt and rubbing alcohol while playing their guitar.

Muchas gracias a los voluntarios, Jorge Hernádez, un licensiado receiente de UdG, y Humberto Muñiz, un fotógrafo profesional del periodico Público.  Espero que ellos pueden asistir en las siguentes clases y los traeremos otros voluntarios también.  Los dos vienen con mucha experiencia, ideas y energía para ayudar los niños.  Vamos a reunirnos cada Sábado a las 16:00 en la oficina de CODENI en calle Camarena 336.  Estoy emocionado por las siguentes clases, y muchas gracias a Jorge y Humberto por la ayuda.

Students recite the rules of CODENI.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS Students who begin in the afterschool program that CODENI runs must first learn the rules of the program, which center around respect for themselves, for others and the things around them.

1. My Duties

2. Do my work

3. Respect eachother

4. Arrive on time

5. Don’t profit from children

6. Don’t scratch the tables

7. Don’t use profanity

8. Be responsible and pay attention

9. Don’t waste materials

Boys in CODENI's evening program play a game of volleyball with Jorge's rope net.

MORE IMAGES HERE This afternoon I spent a few hours photographing the young and old, playing in the streets. First some older men, including Manuel, a professional photographer who has taken portraits of tourists for 40 years, played a game of checkers with bottle caps and some different rules on how kings can jump? Later in the evening I reacquainted myself with CODENI’s evening group of activities that help focus on the rights of children, including this month’s topic…recreation.

Families sort through their school supplies.

GALLERY IMAGES At the end of the summer break, CODENI provides school supplies to the students who are in their scholarship program. Each student received a bag of supplies that fulfilled the needs of their teachers for the school year which begins on Monday.

The CODENI staff helped pack the students supplies and then made food for the afternoon end of summer celebration, with a show of dance, drumming, art and photograpy to their parents. I helped the staff make Ritz cracker sandwiches filled with Pate (higado=liver…word of the day). Aside from some minor technical problems with a projector, all went well.

Maria Madrigal teaches Efrain basic photography.

IMAGE GALLERY As part of the CODENI summer activities program, photographer Maria Madrigal spent the past two weeks working with a half dozen students teaching the basics of photography. I hope to continue her work through my year here with the help of Listen to My Pictures for financial support for equipment.

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Two boys play with their windmills on the bus.

GALLERY IMAGES Students in the CODENI summer program took a fieldtrip to the Museo de Zapopan, where there was a wonderful Swiss photography exhibit.