I went to Los Angeles this past weekend for the Pictures of the Year International Awards and to make a presentation with my former co-workers and good friends Beth Macy and Seth Gitner who I shared the Best Documentary Prize with for a series we worked on last year called Age of Uncertainty.  It was a huge honor for us, and we were very humbled by the other photographers and producers with whom we were with.

POYi went over the top for the program, which had a beautiful gallery at the Annenberg Space for Photography.  I met some great photographers from all over the world, saw some old friends and enjoyed the time.  Seth and I took a walk through Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills near the hotel which was a trip to say the least…or at least it seemed to be the opposite of Mexico.

We’re wrapping up our year here in Mexico, and it was nice to take a short break from Guadalajara before returning now for the final two weeks.

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.

Buena suerte, Seth!! from Josh Meltzer on Vimeo.

My good friend and former co-worker Seth Gitner had his last day of work today at The Roanoke Times as multimedia editor before he heads to Syracuse University for a teaching job in multimedia.  Here are some good wishes from some of my friends here in Guadalajara, Mexico.  Que te vaya bien, Seth!

After many months of planning the Truth With A Camera workshop with directors Chris Tyree and Stephen Katz, fellow instructors Faith Cathcart, Dave Ellis and José Hernandez Claire, we are finally here in Guadalajara all together finishing up a fantastic week of work with 19 Mexican and American young photojournalists.  Please visit the blog of the workshop, www.truthworkshopblog to see their work and hear their words.

After a tough week of two big losses for our families (Missy’s grandfather George and our 12-year-old dog Sally) it was absolutely wonderful to make a short 2-day visit with our good friends Eric and Nicole who were starting a week of honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta.  So nice to see familiar faces, to share a country we’ve grown to love and catch up after 7 months of being gone.  The visit was short because we didn’t want to interfere with the love-birds, but we had a great meal downtown P.V. and strolled the boardwalk playing around with funny sculptures, watching a hanging rope performance and helping Eric and Nicole with a little shopping.

Many of you have gotten to know Sally, our black labrador-German shepard friend of 12+ years.  Perhaps she has licked you in your face when you came into our home or you have seen her at our side on hundreds of runs and bike rides up Mill Mountain in Roanoke.

Today, Missy and I made the very difficult decision to have her put to sleep as her physical condition has taken a turn for the worse over the past few months.  While we’ve been away here in Mexico since August we have been so lucky to have her in the caring hands of our friends Donny and Katie who nursed her along with weekly baths, trips to the vet and much love.

It was impossible to imagine that when we said our good-byes in August it would be the last time we saw her.  I was lucky to have seen her a couple of times over January while I was home, but it was obvious she had changed greatly.  There was nothing more we could do for her from afar, and her condition required care beyond what we were willing to ask any of our friends to give her.

For a large dog we were lucky to have had her for so long but that kind of luck certainly doesn’t diminish our sadness over the past few weeks while we’ve tried to figure out what to do.  It has been an especially difficult week for us as Missy lost her Grandpa George Warp earlier in the week.

When we return to Roanoke, we’ll spread her ashes along the paths that she loved to run.  She will be forever missed.

Just a few pictures from Fiesta de la Musica which took up four plazas downtown Guadalajara on Saturday night.  The last concert, La Mala Rodriguez, was supposed to start at midnight, but didn’t get off (in true Mexican fashion) until nearly 2 a.m. but was worth the wait.  Very impressive opening by local band Radaid.

While waiting for the set to get some audio fixed, Danielle, Gustavo and Manzano went into a nearby bar which was about to close, except that Gustavo knew the owner.  We walked into a closing bar only to be followed by half a dozen drunk people who cranked up the Karaoke machine and danced away for another hour.  A crazy series of events….

One of my favorite things about my work here is when I bring 4×6 prints to the subjects that I’ve been working with.  Since January, I’ve been documenting a community of migrants from Zacatecas, who work on the outskirts of Guadalajara making and baking bricks for construction.  It is a community of about 140 families, where many kids work, and everyone lives in extreme poverty.

Yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon with the students who attend a special school provided by an NGO, and as evening arrived, I stopped by the home of a large extended family to drop off about 60 prints from my last few visits, some from a baptism that I attended a few weeks ago.  Rosa started calling out for other neighbors who were in some of the prints to see, and about a half dozen other people literally came running towards our small group.

Juana, a 17-year-old whom I met the first day I visited the community with two social workers, and who at the time was nearly 9-months pregnant, ran over too, asking me if I had her prints.  She was shy that first day, scared out of her mind, having never seen a doctor, and on the doorstep of her first birth.  Now, she has a healthy child, and was exhilerated to see the pictures, the first she’d had of her baby.  I left, as they sorted out who would own which pictures, and then as I was walking away, I heard that once shy girl yell, “Josue! Josue!”

She wondered if I could make a portrait of her, her husband and the baby all together, since he wasn’t in the initial photos.  I happily obliged, made a quick photo and promised to return on Wednesday with the print for them. “And if you can’t find me,” Juana said, “You can leave the picture with my grandmother, OK?”

It takes time to build trust in the communities in which I’m working.  My spanish isn’t all that good, and I’m the tall gringo with the cameras, and no one seems to understand exactly what I keep returning for.  But, I’ve found that when I give back to the community something like pictures, which none of them have, it seems to open many doors to friendship, warmth and trust.  It is these moments so far on this adventure that I enjoy most.

Sadly, it’s already mid-year through the Fulbright, and for that the Becarios (grantees) gathered in Mexico City this past week for a mid-term reunion, to make short presentations of what we’ve been up to all these months.  The work and range of projects is simply amazing, from the creative to the science and everything in between.

It was also a chance to see some friends we’d made in September when we first arrived, and to make new friends.  On Saturday, 22 of us traveled the 1.5 hour ride in 5 cabs to Xochimilco, a series of canals just south of this huge city, once the flower-growing area of the District.  Now it’s a place for Chilangos and guests to relax for an afternoon on the lanchas, cruising slowly in the crowded canals with a few micheladas, corn, and coconut ice cream.

James Breiner, a Knight Fellow working in Guadalajara, it seems was there the same day as us, and has some good history on his blog on Xochimilco.  Missy also has some good info and anecdotes.

It was a great decision to take a break from working on issues of migration of people and spend a day photographing and watching the migration of 20 million monarch butterflies, as they gather in one of several reserves in the Mexican state of Michoacan for the winter.  We were lucky, unlike this fellow Fulbrighter, and the day was sunny which meant the butterflies were full in flight, and moving all around us….simply amazing.

The butterflies are so many that you can hear the flapping of their wings as the move around over and under.  Anywhere there was water, several thousand would gather sipping from the natural springs that bubbled up at over 10,000 feet above sea level.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have my video camera, which I think is the best way to show it, but we were able to put some clips together with Missy’s point and shoot (and with some silly music) put together a video below.

The butterflies stay in Mexico through March, and I highly recommend this to anyone!  Thanks to our friends Meghan and Liam for transportation, setting up the whole weekend, and great company….and as usual, Missy’s blog has much more information than mine….

Last weekend, we went off to Morelia with friends Liam and Meghan for a three-day weekend to visit the monarch butterly sanctuaries.  We stayed in the capital of the state of Michoacan, in Morelia, which was a beautiful place to get away from Guadalajara.  We only visited the historic center, but loved the colonial buildings, the lack of grafiti covering everything, and the amount of activity in the plazas on the weekends.  I’m nearly convinced that every photo in Mexican tour books that isn’t taken at the beach or in the desert may have been taken in the center of Morelia.

It was Valentine’s weekend, so the balloon vendors were out in full force, as we were treated to a children’s dance performance.

Our good friend Octavio invited us to a quinceañera of one of his in-laws’ nieces a few weeks ago.  The ceremony began as a religious one with mass, and moved into a full-party atmosphere, with blaring music for hours on end.  Octavio filled us in on what we were to see, which was a well-choreographed dance with the 15-year-old girl and her five-guy entourage, complete with canes for added affect.

Teenagers dove into bottles of tequila placed on every table, and I watched a 14-year-old open a beer bottle with his teeth and slam every last drop down in one gulp.  Finally, we were exhausted from the level of audio of the music and too much fried pasta, peanuts and pork, so we begged for a ride home from Octavio’s brother.

Missy and I went to a great show last night of a band/circus called Zaico Circo.  They came highly recommended and we were treated to an amazing show of music and antics including people on stilts, a trumbonist standing on a table speaking in his own language, and incredible energy.  This video below is from another performance, but at least you can see and hear them in action.

In my last few days of my USA east coast trip over new years….in NYC with Emily and Alan, here in Virginia with friends and Sally (who has aged somewhat).  Heading to Athens, GA on Saturday to see Mom and Dad for the last leg of a great few weeks.