Cuba Hey 514
Forbidden Fruit: Images From Havana
Those who have had the good fortune to visit Havana, know the compulsion of wanting to photograph EVERYTHING. Such is the pull of this place that exists just beyond our reach.
We spent a week driving and walking through the neighborhoods of the city. I had set my camera in automatic mode, shooting a large jpeg file, so that I could be spontaneous. A tripod would have inhibited our flow with the experience. I was basically taking snapshots. By the end of our stay I had taken close to a thousand pictures.
There is a term in Korean landscape painting called “True Painting”. The landscape becomes a map of the artist’s journey. People look at photo albums in a similar way; the images stimulate our memories. Our hostess was very generous in offering to drive us around, introducing us to the various neighborhoods and nuances of the complex labyrinth that is Havana. Sitting in the back seat of our hostess’ car, snapping the camera’s shutter, I became aware of the gesture of the moment; the out of focus blur created by this animated process of viewing the city. During much of the 20th. and now the 21st. Century, our experience of the landscape of the world around us has been textured by this animation.
In January 1959, Castro's victorious army rolled into Havana. I was at an art school in Los Angeles and remember the headlines in the newspapers, and how excited we all were about the changing world. The Cuban revolution was a part of our social landscape.
Though the architecture of Havana is haunting, and it’s iconic automobiles a link to our connective past; one becomes aware that the real heart and soul of Havana lies in the vibrance of it’s inhabitants. It’s people are a magnet to our eye. Whether in a moving car or from the intimate perspective of walking the winding alleys and cobblestones of Habana veija, old Havana; I pointed my camera at anything and anyone that caught my eye.
When I returned to my studio I started viewing the pictures and became aware of the layered stories of place and time. They began to create a rhythm in my mind, a twisting path of histories leading to the present. I felt the need to take them out of their virtual world, and translate them into prints - large prints. As I made my selection of images, and then hung the 30” x 40” proofs around my studio, a new presence emerged. Collectively they became a portrait of a city and its people.
Those who have had the good fortune to visit Havana, know the compulsion of wanting to photograph EVERYTHING. Such is the pull of this place that exists just beyond our reach.
We spent a week driving and walking through the neighborhoods of the city. I had set my camera in automatic mode, shooting a large jpeg file, so that I could be spontaneous. A tripod would have inhibited our flow with the experience. I was basically taking snapshots. By the end of our stay I had taken close to a thousand pictures.
There is a term in Korean landscape painting called “True Painting”. The landscape becomes a map of the artist’s journey. People look at photo albums in a similar way; the images stimulate our memories. Our hostess was very generous in offering to drive us around, introducing us to the various neighborhoods and nuances of the complex labyrinth that is Havana. Sitting in the back seat of our hostess’ car, snapping the camera’s shutter, I became aware of the gesture of the moment; the out of focus blur created by this animated process of viewing the city. During much of the 20th. and now the 21st. Century, our experience of the landscape of the world around us has been textured by this animation.
In January 1959, Castro's victorious army rolled into Havana. I was at an art school in Los Angeles and remember the headlines in the newspapers, and how excited we all were about the changing world. The Cuban revolution was a part of our social landscape.
Though the architecture of Havana is haunting, and it’s iconic automobiles a link to our connective past; one becomes aware that the real heart and soul of Havana lies in the vibrance of it’s inhabitants. It’s people are a magnet to our eye. Whether in a moving car or from the intimate perspective of walking the winding alleys and cobblestones of Habana veija, old Havana; I pointed my camera at anything and anyone that caught my eye.
When I returned to my studio I started viewing the pictures and became aware of the layered stories of place and time. They began to create a rhythm in my mind, a twisting path of histories leading to the present. I felt the need to take them out of their virtual world, and translate them into prints - large prints. As I made my selection of images, and then hung the 30” x 40” proofs around my studio, a new presence emerged. Collectively they became a portrait of a city and its people.