'Truth With A Camera' in Guadalajara

There are only 15 spots in the Truth With A Camera workshop in Guadalajara, Mexico, May 23-31. It is led by NPPA 2006 Photographer of the Year Josh Meltzer, a Roanoke Times photojournalist and Fulbright scholar.

(Meltzer's prizewinning "Age of Uncertainty" project, about caring for the elderly, is proudly showcased on KobreGuide.)

Imagine children as young as 6-years-old, running in and out of traffic on a 6-lane highway, trying to sell a piece of gum, wash a windshield, or juggle oranges for change. They lack education, suffer from malnutrition, and are surrounded by a world of danger and loneliness. Now imagine it is your job to tell the whole world who these children are. To breathe light into an existence too few know about. That’s the critical role photographers working with non-profits and NGOs play.

It is exactly what you’ll be tasked with if you join our next Truth With A Camera workshop in Guadalajara, Mexico. At over 5 million people, Mexico’s second largest city is one of the most modern in Mexico, though social inequity and urban poverty remain a constant and painful reality for the tens of thousands who have sunk desperately below an already subterranean poverty line. This is no vacation. During this intensive week, you will be working alongside students from the University of Guadalajara, one of the largest and most respected public institutions of higher education in Mexico.

After each full day of shooting, your evenings will be spent editing your work with some of the leaders in the field of documentary photography from America and Mexico. Your shared assignments, at one of our partnering NGOs, will offer you the chance to be both witness and advocate. A chance to build experience and make a difference – by donating your work to the NGO - at the same time.

Tuition is $1,100, and only $110 for students at University of Guadalajara. Check TruthWithACamera.org for more information .

Roanoke Times Wins Documentary Project of the Year

Congratulations to the Roanoke Times for winning the Documentary Project of the Year category of the Pictures of the Year International awards.

KobreGuide previously showcased their winning entry, "Age of Uncertainty," along with most of the POY runners-up and finalists -- as well as a majority of the prizewinners in all of the other categories as well.

"Age of Uncertainty" is an ambitious multimedia series that tackles issues affecting the rapidly growing elderly population ... and who will care for them.

KobreGuide salutes the winners, and is pleased that POY recognizes their merits. We will provide a complete list of links to all the prizewinners later this week.

Caring for the Elderly

On KobreGuide, we previously showcased an intensely personal story about a couple -- filmmaker Julie Winokur and photojournalist Ed Kashi -- who uprooted themselves and their two kids to move across the country to care for her octogenarian father. Winokur and Kashi used their storytelling gifts to craft a first-person video chronicle of universal appeal, as they find themselves among the 20 million Americans who are caught between having to simultaneously take care of young children and aging parents. It was produced by MediaStorm, appeared on MSNBC, and is called "The Sandwich Generation."

We've just added some more chapters to the ongoing saga of how America is coping with a booming population of seniors who are afflicted with dementia, and our frustratingly limited resources for caring for them. The Roanoke Times embarked on an ambitious multi-faceted online project that examines how well their region is taking care of its elderly. (Roanoke's senior population is one of the largest per capita in the nation.)

Their series, Age of Uncertainty, includes a four-part video story of a woman caring for her husband who suffers from dementia, and eight additional videos covering topics such as doctors who make house calls, Meals on Wheels, a home care aid, and the profile of a geriatrician. The package is the result of a successful collaboration of writer Beth Macy and videojournalist Josh Meltzer. This enterprising project looks at a range of care options for the elderly, and repeatedly asks the important question: How will we as a society take care of our increasingly aging population?

Please take a look at both of these packages -- one from a first-person perspective, the other a more traditional third-person perspective. They're both heart-wrenching, and we think you'll appreciate the merits of each. Please let us know what you think, by using the Comments box on their respective pages. Then click the "Share This" icon at the top of each story's page, so that you can email it to friends, or post it to your favorite social-network Website. Hard-hitting stories like these are too good, and too valuable, to keep secret.