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.

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!

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.

My good friend Evelio Contreras, whom I worked with in Roanoke (now he’s at Las Vegas Sun), is visiting for the week, and we’re working hard.  Sunday afternoon we went to Parque Agua Azul, a city park, looking for a group of guys I photographed back in September who play Fronton  (handball).  I told him that day there was a man with only one arm, and somehow, he was there Sunday too, so we made a little video story about him and the game in the park.  Afterwards he challenged us to a game, which we oblidged.  It wasn’t as hard as I first thought, but my hand was sore the next day.

Yesterday, before shooting some interviews for my projects, we spent about an hour at the Lucha Libre office begging for press passes to today’s matches.  I think we’re 85% there…still have to write a formal letter of request and drop it off later today before the fight.  Should be fun if we can work it out.  Stay tuned.

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.

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.

So, while here we worked for two very long days and evenings on a short story about Fabiola Ruvalcaba, a partially blind Judo star, who won the silver medal at the 2008 Paraolympic Games in Beijing this past summer.  We shot a short interview and photographed her at the gym and at home to quickly put together this video story.

It was a great experience for both Miguel, who returned I think feeling very encouraged to try more multimedia at his paper, and for me, getting another opportunity to edit and work in Spanish more.  We basically ran out of time to edit the video shorter, which it needs to be, but it was an experiment and a great start for Miguel.

I know that two wrongs don’t make a right, but after living here for three months, and using our bicycles to get around most of the time, we were seeking some sweet revenge on the buses, cars and even pedestrians.  Every first Thursday of the month, over 3000 cyclists gather at Parque Revoluncion to ride about an hour on some of Guadalajara’s busiest and largest roads, blocking traffic, frustrating buses and cars and making a lot of noise.  Perhaps the best was going through the tunnels that bypass certain neighborhoods and getting passed in the tunnel by a double-decker bike ridden by a guy in a gorilla suit.  Ah Mexico.

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.