Closing this blog

Dear lovely followers of this blog. I have now completed my People and Place course and sent everything to the OCA for assessment. It is time to move on to my Digital Film Production course and the new blog is here:

http://helendigitalfilm.blogspot.co.uk/

Brace yourselves for crappy sketches done on my iPad and film reviews along the lines of "loved it!" or "utter pants!".

It is going to be a rocky road but much more fun if you all come along for the ride so hope to see you there...

Camera Sutra : )

http://designtaxi.com/news/355618/Camera-Sutra-Popular-Photography-Positions/

Havana photos (after Klein - ish)

So I was very inspired by the OCA trip to the William Klein exhibition and decided to process a batch of my latest holiday photos in his style (sort of).  I salvaged some images that would usually have been discarded due to technical issues, upped the contrast and added grain effect.  It felt counter-intuitive as Havana is such a colourful place but the city is also highly textured and very dark at night so I felt these kind of work.  Would be interested to hear what other people think?

Black and white gallery:

http://www.helenrosemier.com/havana13blackandwhite

And to compare and contrast the approach, this is the colour gallery (not the same images):

http://www.helenrosemier.com/havana13colour

William Klein + Daido Moriyama Tate Modern Study Tour

Having just landed at Gatwick from a(nother) holiday in Havana, I was lucky enough to be offered a place on this study tour due to a last minute cancellation.  My small disclaimer is that, as I had no idea I would be attending, there was no time for research and I have not yet had chance to follow up on the OCA recommended films or any reviews.   So here are my uninformed ramblings….

We began outside the Tate Modern, in the chilly London air, by briefly discussing the link between these two photographers.  Tutor Rob Bloomfield and various students pointed out some of the connections, such as their use of photobooks, shooting mainly in black and white and their approach to street photography, particularly in New York and Tokyo.  Moriyama has also cited Klein as a major influence on his own work.

The exhibition is brilliantly curated (by Simon Baker) – very nicely paced with a mix of large-scale images, film, smaller prints, paintings and books (mainly from Martin Parr’s private collection, it seems) in vitrines.  Room Three of each retrospective is half open to the other, which emphasises the relationship.  Klein was born in NYC in 1928 but has spent much of his life in Paris.  Moriyama was born in Osaka in 1938 but moved to Tokyo in the early 60s. Both are still working.

Klein’s Broadway by Light film (1958) shows New York, initially through abstract neon signage at night then panning out to buildings in daytime, with an experimental jazz soundtrack.  It is quite disorientating as the close-ups of the signs don’t make much sense in isolation. The music is like that of a Hitchcock thriller and the images seemed to mirror the sounds – pulsating lights and tense human movements.  There is no obvious journey for the viewer – it is more just an experience of sight and sound, which conveys some of the intensity of Manhattan.  I was left with a sense of unease and I noticed most people did not stay to watch the whole film.  An interesting portrait of NYC though, and presumably quite avant-garde at the time of making.  I wondered how much Tom Waits was inspired by Klein – this felt like it might have had some influence on the movie Big Time.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094743/

This exhibition was my first proper exposure to Klein’s street photography and I was blown away.  He is very provocative, deliberately getting up close to his subjects. Someone is looking directly – and often suspiciously - at him in almost all the shots with crowds.  These are messy wide-angle images, over-spilling the frame, powerful depictions of the chaos and claustrophobia, the parade of humanity in New York.  Some images include fashion models or dancers that the artist deliberately placed in urban settings but it is difficult to see what has been staged and what not. 

The four massive images on the right hand side of Room Two are very commanding and set the tone well for the show – blurry, grainy, heavy use of contrast, eccentric.  The narrative is inexplicable, intriguing (the man with two hats!) and each could be the still from a movie that I would really like to watch.  His lack of concern with technical standards is liberating and works well, even on the larger prints.  Klein really seems to capture the culture of the age and yet his work has a timeless quality, as he presents so many fascinating human stories. 

This kind of up-close street photography always makes me wonder how much you can tell of the personality of the photographer from the images.  Is he charismatic, funny, charming? Über-persuasive or just a ballsy chancer?  There are a few pictures of kids pointing toy guns at him, and many with extreme expressions, which again adds to the in-your-face dynamism of the work.  He uses continuous shooting techniques and various abstractions/experiments such as photograms and exploring different mediums.

Klein talks about his photobook sequencing as being like editing a film.  “I saw the book I wanted to do as a tabloid gone berserk, gross, grainy, over-inked, with a brutal layout, bull-horn headlines.  This is what New York deserved and would get.”

I was very happy that the images did not have descriptive titles (mostly just place names) and it was interesting to see when they had been printed (although I don’t really have the technical know-how to make any deductions from this).  Klein is clearly fascinated with signs and advertising, typography etc and the result is almost collage-like images.  Here is a human figure or two, some glass reflections, a bit of a building and a billboard, a street sign, the hint of a car – these could all have been pasted together from different scenes.  I found the raw energy to be very appealing and inspiring.

The colour work (Contacts) was less interesting to me, possibly as the style is over-used in our modern culture. I found it hard to imagine how exactly it would have been received at the time of creation as it seems so familiar to me.

I am definitely now a big fan of William Klein.  His edginess and multi-media profile as a painter, film-maker and graphic artist alongside his photographic instincts result in some extraordinary images. 

For my own work, this part of the study tour has encouraged me to ….

• Be more bold with the use of contrast
• Feel free to be a bit messier with my compositions (lopped off heads, hands and feet are not always the end of the world) – Clive has said this all along, of course!
• Be less worried about blur or blown-out highlights (in fact I should experiment more with how little detail can be included while still conveying a message)
• Think about grouping my images together more (last night I discarded some images from Cuba which were blurry or where the people had their back to me which may have worked well in a set with a B/W, grainy treatment)

Moriyama says: “My approach is very simple – there is no artistry, I just shoot freely. For me, photography is not about an attempt to create a two-dimensional work of art, but by taking photo after photo, I come closer to truth and reality at the very intersection of the fragmentary nature of the world and my own personal sense of time.”

I actually felt that much of his work did not feel as if it had been shot freely and I would have surmised that he was in fact obsessed with create two-dimensional art, at the expense of telling stories in the way that Klein does.  I generally found Moriyama’s images to be much more flat, lifeless, uninteresting – all about a 2D aesthetic but individually unmemorable.  I wonder if it is because I have never visited Japan and have no real affinity with the culture or maybe that he conveys too well a sense of isolation and anonymity, a “nightmarish dislocation” as Clive suggested?  Maybe some of his abstractions/disassociations are just one step too far for my taste. I was largely left cold.

It all lead to some interesting discussions with fellow students and tutors though. We were intrigued (and a little surprised) by the image of a foetus – I wondered how far Moriyama had directed its positioning to create the right aesthetic? Clive talked about the archeology of understanding, the layers of time and experience and how much of this has been flattened by the Internet and our modern approaches to learning.  Gareth brought up the point that photography is not a universal language.   I also considered (silently) whether blurry images are a bit more acceptable when shooting with film rather than digital?

I do not believe that Moriyama has really captured the eroticism of Tokyo as he claims. I fact, I found his imagery to be depressingly devoid in that respect – even the pictures of curvaceous body parts.  His approach is sensuous but I found the results lacking.  Perhaps with the exception of the close up of the legs and crotch in fishnet stockings as part of the series How to Create a Beautiful Picture (1987)… I have to confess that I enjoyed watching people getting very close to the image to work out what it was and then jumping back as they realised where they were putting their face.

Room Five saved the day for me – this featured a slideshow of stills taken on the Japanese island of Hokkaido in 1978 when Moriyama was going through some serious personal problems.  He promised himself that he would go out and take pictures everyday and the result is a powerful portrait of the ordinary, the beautiful, the sad, the cold, the loneliness of that moment in his world.  This is where I could really see just how freely he shoots.  No artistry is necessary as it all comes from his simple, wonderful vision.  The Polaroid/Polaroid mosaic (1997) is superb too – gorgeous textures and tricks of scale and perspective which create a new symbiotic interior landscape.

Another highlight of the show was learning that Moriyama has a signature photograph - a stray dog, photographed in 1971.  According to the guide, “It is an image of solitude, disengaged from society and living on the streets, abject, wild and even threatening.  But it may be the intensity of the dog’s gaze, warily assessing its surroundings, that allies it so closely with the photographer.”  It seems that Moriyama has reworked this image obsessively over the decades and has presented in other mediums such as silk screen prints.  “It has also come to embody his own restless creativity.” 

So what have I learned…. ?

• I want to have a signature image! 
• This part of the exhibition encouraged me, like the Klein work, to think about how I can group my images together – how they speak to each other and work as a set
• The scale and positioning/juxtaposing and repro of prints can make a massive difference to how people respond to them
• Shoot ‘freely’, shoot a lot – get out into ordinary places and find extraordinary things to photograph without worrying all the time about the technical execution

All in all, I found the work of these two incredible men to be very inspiring – a great exhibition experience and, as always, a pleasure to get chance to speak with my student friends and tutors.

Saz and Andy

Brighton

Photos from the OCA Brighton Photo Biennale

Fantabulous weekend!

Eggs

The Leeds 20 Weekend Residential

Press Association Images

Great day out at PA Images in Nottingham last week. This company is owned by national and regional newspapers and has over 40 staff photographers. The building we visited also houses about 12 million prints, negs and slides going back to 1863. 99% of the work is now licensing digital images to newspapers, magazines and websites with about 1% being sales directly to the public. Specialising in editorial, news, sport and entertainment - primarily known for politics and royal coverage (PA have photographed every wedding since Queen Victoria). They pride themselves on being fast and fair and this is clearly a business about keeping clients happy and ensuring good relationships with potential subjects (especially when it comes to royalty).


PA Images work with Demotix - a ‘Citizen Journalism’ site which aggregates pictures from places where PA photographers would not be (they are always embedded in somewhere like Afghanistan so there is minimal risk)

Discussion subjects included:

When it comes to very hard-hitting reportage - "nasty stuff" as Gareth put it - what is acceptable in one country would not be elsewhere. PA will put AP images on their wire but tend to err on the side of caution. They feel that very candid street photography can overstep their line (of celebrities etc). It would not be in their interests to upset people.

The difference between censorship and filtration. One of the students, Cedric, had some strong opinions about this and seemed to be concerned that the PA was in a powerful position to dictate what is seen by the public. MD Martin Stephens explained that they are not publishers but they follow PCC guidelines carefully and always aim to create and distribute without political or other bias. They are there to 'capture' what is happening. He believes that the value in the image if taken by a PA photographer is that it has assurances of being authentic and neutral. There needs to be an editorial process.

PA sued the BNP for using one of their images without permission. That was not a brand they wished to be associated with in any way.

Maggy asked about how the market for images is changing. In the past, a red carpet shot at a film premiere may have been worth £100 per licence but is now down to £25. Now there would be more agencies vying for market share and even individuals willing to sell at £5 per image. So the news environment is tough. Sports is much better - the PA has good access into clubs so can gain good value. Tablet publishing has also been a blessing as now galleries of images can exist where once only a single picture would have been published.

Martin suggested that finding a niche is key - he talked about Barcroft Media who specialise in "the amazing side of life" - they research, report and photograph and then sell to publishers – e.g. the girl with eight arms in India.

For a PJ, the ultimate accolade is getting the double page spread in the Guardian. Next best thing is to have an image chosen for the picture in the lifts at the PA offices in Victoria. The Kylie Minogue pics always get stolen apparently!

Bob asked what the impact had been of the Leveson Enquiry. Martin felt that the PA's values were firmly in the right place already so no real changes.

Martin recommended that we all each get £5m public liability insurance as it is a pre-requisite to get access to sporting events etc.

Agencies won't accept images unless the photographer was licensed to be there (unless completely unique and amazing capture - eg evidence of John Terry's (alleged) racism that no one else had managed to capture).

The police often request material which is always refused without a court injunction and PA always supply this completely anonymously so no individual photographers can be called to give evidence.

Another discussion point was cropping. PA's policy is that they would not materially change a capture via cropping but are not as extreme as AP which has a no cropping policy. Great problem when photographers feel that a sub-editor has destroyed their image to make it look pretty on the page. Photographers ideally need to get buy-in from the picture editor to submit the pic with exactly THAT crop. Images can be designated as 'no crop' and 'don't archive' but this is often ignored - recent case with Martin McGuiness.

Very interesting analysis of different newspapers approaches to a severed leg in a scene following a terrorist attack.

All in all a really fascinating experience and one which I hope many other students will be able to enjoy in future.

Favourite quote of the day : "I can't read 50 Shades of Grey, it will put me off my TAOP colour assignment!"

Top of the hill

Assignment 4: A sense of place

Havana, Cuba is like no other place I have ever been, which may be one of the reasons I keep going back. I have visited the city four times now, staying for a cumulative total of a month and a half, most of that time spent in Havana Vieja (Old Havana), a vibrant part of the city so historically and culturally rich that it has been granted UNESCO World Heritage status by the United Nations. With each subsequent visit to Havana, I have become a little more familiar with the area and better able to recognize and appreciate the rich ingredients that make this wonderfully unique place the city that it is.

In this assignment I have attempted to show some of the character of Havana Vieja and of the people who live there - the rich colours, the unique landscapes, the irrepressible spirit of the people.

The essential character of Havana

One of the most important and prominent of those ingredients is music. Except for during the very early morning hours -- when the only sounds in the city are the occasional car, or the ticking of a dog's paws as a stray trots by, or the low tones of conversation between people still waking up -- there is the constant sound of music in Havana Vieja. Whether it is coming from the open doorways of a bar where a salsa band is playing, or an apartment where a group is rehearsing, or a radio in someone's kitchen from where the song of a heartbreak sung in Spanish echoes out into the street, or someone else singing unseen in the warm darkness of the poorly lit city, late at night, there is always the sound of song in Havana Vieja. As soon as one walks beyond the sound of one source of music, another will become audible ahead, as if the very heartbeat of Havana were made up of the thousands of melodies and rhythms that emanate from the people and coalesce into the beautiful cacophony of the streets.

What makes Havana what it is? It is made of crumbling colonial buildings in faded paint that are still lived in, with lines full of clean laundry hanging between the pillars, and families packed into immaculately clean front rooms, lit by the harsh light of low-wattage bulbs.  It is stray dogs, often mangy, or missing limbs or eyes, who trot through the streets with some unknown purpose, as if they have somewhere very important to go.

The smell of dog poo is an essential ingredient in the miasma that makes up the smells of Havana, and part of what makes Havana what it is, is the unique perfume of the city. While much of the aroma of the street can be unpleasant, sometimes surprisingly so when one walks past a cluster of bins that haven't had their leaking cargo of rotting meat and vegetables emptied for a week, there are other smells that perfume the tropical air of the city. There are the smells of cigars of course, and sometimes the smell of the sea when the breeze is right, and the aroma of things frying, plantains and potatoes and chicken, and through it all is laced the thick fume of exhaust from the thousands of classic American cars that make up such a large percentage of Cuban traffic.

 More than anything it is the people themselves, the “Habaneros” who I think define the character of the city. They live in grinding poverty, but it is universal and shared by all, and this gives them a sense of pride in self and a belief in the greater good of community that is apparent even on one's first visit to Havana. The pride in self that the Cubans have is evident in the immaculately clean clothes worn by both men and women alike, and the way that their stride makes both genders look as if they own the entire world when they walk down the street. Their sense of community is obvious when one notices that no car has fewer than four passengers, motorcycles almost always have side-cars in order to take as many people as possible on any journey, and if someone on the street is trying to do something difficult, such as raising a heavy industrial light fixture using an unbelievably dangerous-looking series of chains and pulleys, there will be a dozen volunteers that materialize from everywhere around to advise and confer and to lend their back to the task.

Havana is safe, but looks very dangerous with its fierce-looking people and its poorly lit streets. Havana is children that are beloved by the community and aren't afraid to play in the streets. Havana is poverty of material goods and wealth of human strength and kindness living side by side. Havana is shortages and people who don't speak English who have an enormous amount of idle time but who always seem to be looking to find a way to make their lives better, together. Havana is hot and cold and smoky and dirty and friendly and cut off from much of the rest of the world and utterly beautiful, and slowly by slowly, poco y poco, Havana is changing.

Critical analysis

There is such diversity that it is hard to capture all facets of the character of the city.  I feel that these twelve images succeed in showing some of the real Havana, avoiding the tourist office clichés.  My main regret is that I did not manage to get an image which successfully shows one of the squares. There are a few more taken from rooftops but I didn’t want the set to see too voyeuristic.

Although we have always found the city to be very safe, we have received advice to avoid certain areas especially while carrying expensive camera equipment. This is something I aim to be braver about next time I visit as I am sure there is some great ‘Street’ to be had on the peripheries of the old town or in Centro .  I will also be taking a tripod as Havana at night is visually stunning and I would like to capture that properly.  In hindsight, I probably should also have spent more time inside buildings – we have tended to avoid the touristy places, museums etc but I am sure there would be some fantastic photographic opportunities in some of the interiors.  I found the combination of bright Caribbean light and narrow dark streets quite challenging and sometimes resorted to using Automatic settings to try to snag the best street shots. 

I would like to think that I would have approached this in the same way even if I had been taking photographs with no clear end-result in mind.  Good vacation photography should aim to show the character of a place and its people even with no expectations for the work to be published. 

1. Dog (corner of Neptune and Paseo de Marti)

Exposed: 1^st January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/5.6

Shutter speed: 1/400

ISO: 100

Focal length: 300mm

Lighting:  late afternoon sun

One of the first things that struck me when I arrived in Havana is that there is always something going on, everywhere you look. All the Habaneros seem to have a real sense of purpose – even the dogs.  This image includes three iconic Cuban sights: a classic American car, pedicabs and a stray dog in the middle of the road.  Along with all the pedestrian activity, I think this really conveys a sense of the character of the urban landscape.

2. On the bench

Exposed: 7^th January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon EF70mm-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

Aperture: f/2.8

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 250

Focal length: 200mm

Lighting:  early morning sunshine

In and amongst the hubbub, Cubans always find time to sit around and socialise.  Without the usual Western distractions of modern life and with very limited access to reading material or cash for the bars, sitting in the street watching or talking in groups is a huge part of the culture in Havana.  I feel this image captures some sense of the widespread poverty in the city while showing the dignity of its inhabitants. I am also rather intrigued by what the man in blue might be holding in his hand and what the relationship is between these people.

3. Grocery shopping

Exposed: 5^th January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon EF70mm-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

Aperture: f/2.8

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 3200

Focal length: 200mm

Lighting:  dawn

There are very few of what we would consider to be “normal” shops in Cuba.  Most outlets are still controlled by the state and food is rationed.  Outside of this system, fruit and vegetables are sometimes available on small trolleys parked in the street at certain times of day and usually just selling one type of produce.  This image shows how the street vendors are an intrinsic part of the scenery on the streets of Habana Vieja and how very basic the shopping “experience” can be.

4. Watchmaker

Exposed: 7^th January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/4.5

Shutter speed: 1/50

ISO: 3200

Focal length: 70mm

Lighting:  dusk

Walking up and down the streets of the old town, one passes dozens of seemingly empty open rooms, which are actually shop fronts.  This view reveals the small homemade watchmaker’s cabinet and also an intriguing set up with a chair and mirror presumably for haircutting. For me this scene really evokes the communist austerity in Cuba – the muted colours, harsh strip lighting, bare walls, immaculately swept floors, all framed by a disintegrating exterior. As is so often the case, there are random pieces of furniture in sight.  Nothing is wasted in Cuba – everything will be recycled, repurposed or at least stored for some future adaptation.

5. Working man

Exposed: 29^th December 2011

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon EF70mm-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

Aperture: f/2.8

Shutter speed: 1/500

ISO: 200

Focal length: 70mm

Lighting:  early morning sunshine

A common sight on the narrow streets of the old town is of individual labourers helping the street vendors or performing tasks for the state run stores.  This gentleman was bagging up lemons, using the most basic of equipment, including a very rickety cart.  His expression captures the rigour (and mundanity?) of the work and indicates the very primitive level of industry in which many Cubans are engaged.  We also saw many chairs like this one, which looked as if they would collapse instantly should someone try to use them.

6. Kids

Exposed: 28^th December 2011

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/4.5

Shutter speed: 1/250

ISO: 400

Focal length: 80mm

Lighting:  late afternoon hazy sunshine

Habana Vieja streets are quite narrow with low levels of traffic and with much of daily life occurring outdoors, children play happily everywhere.  There is a great sense of community and reliance on extended family members and neighbours to keep an eye on the kids.  I wanted to capture the open friendliness of the children in the streets – they love having their photo taken (although the savvy ones sometimes ask for a peso in return).  The adults often seem oblivious to the tourists taking pics and certainly don’t mind their children being snapped.  We carry biros to give the children as these can be scarce in the city.  It is easy to overly-romanticise the socialist idyll but the kids in Havana genuinely seem joyful and relaxed as well as being educated and well-behaved.

7. Top floor

Exposed: 28^th December 2011

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/5.6

Shutter speed: 1/500

ISO: 100

Focal length: 300mm

Lighting:  early afternoon sunshine

With space at such a premium in this over-crowded city, the Cubans use up every square foot.  This image shows a little of life on the rooftops of Havana – the shacks, the laundry lines, the vantage points for the national hobby of people-watching.

8. Rooftops of Havana Centro

Exposed: 5^th January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/5.6

Shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 200

Focal length: 150mm

Lighting:  late afternoon hazy sunshine

It is difficult to capture views across the city that really do justice to what one can see with the naked eye but I hope this image gives a sense of the colours, the state of disrepair of many of the buildings, signs of life in every nook and cranny.  Habaneros are very proud of their city and are delighted to hear tourists say that they love it too and I am always glad that I can honestly say that I find scenes like this breathtaking and beautiful.

9. Taxi

Exposed: 1^st January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/5.6

Shutter speed: 1/800

ISO: 100

Focal length: 300mm

Lighting:  late afternoon sunshine

The most unique thing about Cuba is the ubiquity of classic American cars. Although the ratio is now changing rapidly, a few years ago about 70% of the cars on the road were pre-revolution.  As well as looking so picturesque for tourists, these cars hold a lot of people, which ties in perfectly with the ethos of helping out the neighbours and sharing the costs whenever possible.  You rarely see a car that isn’t packed with people and even the motorbikes have sidecars.  This image shows (what I am told is) a 1950 Buick, in all its glory, being used as a state-sponsored taxi for locals. I wanted to include one of these cars in the set but without it being too clichéd – hence the slightly unusual elevated viewpoint and the choice of a ‘working’ vehicle rather than a showpiece.  To me, the driver and passengers look strong and spirited, even in what must be quite unpleasant travelling conditions.

10. Street view

Exposed: 6^th January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon EF70mm-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

Aperture: f/2.8

Shutter speed: 1/160

ISO: 125

Focal length: 200mm

Lighting:  early morning sunshine

This image captures so much of the essence of the off-the-beaten-track of Habana Vieja for me. It shows the stunning light, pockets of activity on the street, the bright colours of the buildings, the balconies, the dangerous-looking wiring set-ups, laundry, the lanterns, lads carrying unidentifiable machinery parts…  In reality, most road surfaces are much more pot-holed than this and usually riddled with suspiciously opaque puddles and a disconcerting amount of dog mess!

11. People-watching

Exposed: 7^th January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/5.0

Shutter speed: 1/125

ISO: 2000

Focal length: 160 mm

Lighting:  late afternoon cloudy

Habaneros lean over their balconies or stand by walls or sit on their doorsteps for hours on end just watching the world go by – greeting neighbours, chatting with tourists, petting their dogs, smoking, reading Granma, but mainly just staring.  They often look fierce but if you wave they will grin and shout “Hola!”.  This image captures that pass-time for me – down to the detail of the man’s dachshund - the breed that is most popular in Havana at the moment. He is sitting on the stoop of his home, not a building site as it may seem.

12. Habanero

Exposed: 7^th January 2012

Equipment used: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: EF70-300mm, f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM

Aperture: f/5.0

Shutter speed: 1/60

ISO: 640

Focal length: 160mm

Lighting:  late afternoon cloudy

I really feel that this scene adds another dimension to this set of images depicting the character of Havana and its citizens.  It was shot on Obispo, the main pedestrian street of Vieja.  The permanent billboard advertising El Clip – a watch shop -  shows some old photographs of the street as it was many decades ago.  What is the man remembering as he stares at these pictures?  It seems like there is something very intense about the connection between him and the photographs, even though we cannot see the expression on his face, and I find this image to be very moving.  There is something so still, so innocent and trusting about his stance and yet he has lived through so many horrendous periods in Cuban history and has had such little control over his destiny. What will future decades bring for this beautiful country and its people?