I’ve never been to Cuba, although like many its story has fascinated me and I’ve written in the past about the country and its photographers, including the pictures of Batista’s Cuba by Constantino Arias (1926-92), Raul Corrales (1925-2006) who in 1959 was official photographer to Fidel Castro and later worked for the government’s ‘Revolucion’ magazine and Alberto Korda (1928-2001) whose image of Che still graces t-shirts and more around the world, as wellas and younger photographers such as José A. Figueroa (1946-) and a dozen or so others.
Visiting photographers have also created fine work there. Among the outstanding examples are three Magnum photographers, Burt Glinn, who photographed the Revolution, David Harvey, with some fine colour work – and he also used to run some gerat workshops there. Only the fees, air fare and carbon footprint prevented me from rushing to them. And another fine colour photographer, Alex Webb
Quite different was the work of Mexican Pablo Cabado, in his book on Cuba in 1990 – 12 pictures on Fifty Crows.
Although I haven’t yet got to Cuba, last night I did have a very enjoyable evening in Bethnal Green, thanks to Havana Cultura, a global art initiative from Havana Club Rum to introduce the world to the fabulous culture of Havana.
Along with around 50 other bloggers I was their guest at Chamucos Bar in the basement of Green and Red more or less opposite the top of Brick Lane. The Mojitos were flowing and the music from Gilles Petersons Havana Cultura album to be released on 26th October was playing – and I wrote this while listening to it again – watch out for it, some great stuff. Mojito Mayhem was one of the meetings of the London Bloggers Meetup, and we also got a couple of presentations from fellow bloggers.
Havana Cultura has a great web site with lots of information about Havana, including photographer René Peña’s (b 1957) favourite views. But what was more interesting to me was to see a video of him talking about and showing his work, in particular a series called “White Things“, exploring the way that people consume things. The pictures show them with consumer objects, not necessarily white, but lit, exposed and printed to make them white against the darker skin of the people. As well as the video and text about him and his work there are also links to some of his pictures.
Doubtless somewhere on the Havana Cultura site you can also find details of the Havana Twitter Treasure Hunt which uses clues on Twitter – @_havanacultura_ and you will find the answers on the Havana Cultura’ web site. The first prize is two tickets to Gilles Petersons exclusive Havana Cultura album launch party in Paris on 26th October.
Tech Note:
All pictures 24-70mm Sigma on Nikon D700, with SB800 mainly bounced from a fairly white ceiling. It was rather dark in parts of the bar and I had to turn on the focus assist light. Shooting at a ISO 2000 and on program – which gave 1/60 f9 for most pictures – meant the ambient lighting helped fill in the distant areas. Lightroom helped a bit too!