recap. part 1 of 2.

I am writing to you from the backroom at work. I was planning to update this a lot more then just two posts, but for some reason my internet in guatemala was the worst. I lived through a volcano eruption and a sinkhole (the sinkhole was actually about 15 miles away or so). not to mention mudslides and hurricanes.

but onto the work end of things. it was 2 days on 1 day off, but even on my off days i was shooting all the time (as was the rest of the team). to give you an idea of how many photos we took i shot an average of 150-250 a day were as some people were shooting between 250-400. from that we were supposed to select our best photos for me that was anywhere between 20-30 and for others 40-100. we would spend our mornings going through these photos as a group and selecting only the best so we would go from 1500-2000+ images to only having 300-400. from that 300-400 images we would cut that down again.

I along with one of my teammates were selected to be the book editors and we cut 300-400 pictures down to about 75 and now have to arrange those in a book. so thats exciting but really just means more work.

Spending time in the dumps was the hardest part. there was the language barrier and then the barrier i created with my camera. but apart from that i saw some of the most determined people ever. for example we were supposed to go to this painters village known as comolapa (sp) and it was blocked off by a mudslide (PHOTO OP!) so we turned around to get a phone call almost 2hrs later and finding out the road was now clear to drive on.

everywhere we went it was smiles..regardless of their living situation. it was intense.

part 2 to come later. back to work for now.

Day two: arrival

two plane flights. sleeping. listening to two this american lifes and now i am in guatemala.

we are staying at a seminary school in guatemala city called seteca. its pretty intense. barbed wire surrounding the whole place high fences ect ect. like i said intense.

upon arriving we were met by analu's (the native guatemalan on the team) family. her family helped us transport our stuff to seteca we quickly got settled and went to her grandmother's house for what they considered a typical meal...it was like thanksgiving to me.


before coming here i thought we ran on the same time. except not. i just recently learned guatemala doesn't observe daylight savings...so it's like i lost an hour of sleep again. anyways..i need to run and finish getting ready for church today.

also i would have put this on my blog mutemonster.blogspot.com but for some odd reason it wont load the page here.

Day one: packing

well i am currently wrapping up packing for my two week trip to guatemala. For those of you who do not know what i will explain.

i am currently enrolled in mayterm (summer courses) at john brown university. the two courses i am taking are social documentary photography & graphic design 3. everyone one the team (8 other students) are also enrolled in social documentary photography. at the same time each student is taking graphic design 1,2, or 3 also. so its modge podge of graphic design levels.

we have spent the past 2 weeks designing a promotional piece for an organization called Chosen People of Guatemala. the organization itself works with the people that live in the Guatemala city dump. the promotional piece is to be used to help raise money for the organization.

the second half which is the reason i am going to guatemala is to take the images that will go in the chosen promotional piece. all the while i have to find a story and create a book. and finally the team will be split into two groups of four. from those two groups we will have to work on two separate projects.

i feel ill-prepared for what to expect since this is unlike any other missions trip i have been on or any trip in general. i am not going to directly but indirectly help these people. we are not building a house or running a vacation bible school. we are merely there to observe and put what we observe into an image. it will be weird since the camera will become a barrier to overcome and i am now just mentioning that i dont speak the language. so there is that barrier as well.

it will be a good trip. but it will also be hard work...very hard work. and i am looking to be stretched as a designer a photographer and a person.

-joel v. martinez
05.22.10