Photo Essays, Family and friends....

All the students have continued to shoot this week every day. Tuesday Vittorio D' Onofri came and gave a presentation of his work. (http://www.victoriodonofri.com/) It was neat for the students to see examples of his photo essays and it gave them some guidance for their own topics of interest. They are coming along-Isui is doing her project on women and domestic violence. Giohovanny is focusing on the old crumbling buildings of Oaxaca. Antonio-poverty in Oaxaca. We are going to present all of their photos in a slideshow format at the gallery show in December! Should be great.

Today the students are working individually around the city and then we are all meeting later to upload photos, disuss and plan the gallery exhibition. We are going to have a potluck, live music, prints and photo greeting cards for sale and a table with information about the Oaxaca Learning Center-which many of the Ojos de Oaxaca students are a part of. Hopefully we gain a lot of support for the Oaxaca Learning Center and the future of the Ojos de Oaxaca photography project. Today the group will collaborate to put together a Power Point Presentation for the art opening.

Saturday we are all going to a small weaving village, Teotitlan de Valle, outside of Oaxaca City. The students are going to gain more practice on taking photos with one subject. We are all going to shoot the process of creating tapetes (hand-woven rugs). It is a sweet charming village where women carry baskets full of produce on their heads and armfuls of roses in their arms. The streets are all cobblestone-a place with great lighting and perfect photography opportunities.

I recently contacted a local family there-who I met on my last visit. Saturday morning they are welcoming all of the Ojos de Oaxaca students into their home for a full papparazzi event-they will spin the wool, dye the fabric with various natural dyes, and weave while all the students will have a chance to document this great tradition. They use cochineal (the insect found on local cactus-that turns red when you smash it), indigo and alfalfa to dye the rugs.

Yesterday we made photography collages. The students were so creative and mixed up all their images in surreal and interesting ways.