I mentioned that we had our final class yesterday, Saturday.  This class was a little different than the previous ones.  Rather than bring in a set of images from the prior day’s shooting, we were told to bring in our Top 10 for the week.  It was interesting in a number of ways.

No one actually arrived in class with their homework assignment complete.  All of us – including me – spent the first part of the class trying to get this set collected.  I got mine done a bit more quickly than most people, but was still late.  Here they are (1):

My “Top 10” (in no particular order), February 2019

Then, for each of us, Steve  showed his selection of our Top 10 images.  For me, as well as for the others, there was substantial overlap but not complete agreement.  He and I agreed on six, and chose four different images to complete the set (2).

I think we all enjoyed seeing each others Top 10, as well as Steve’s Top 10 for each of us as well as his own Top 10 images.  The conversation around the selections was enlightening.  He’s developed into a good teacher, and provides feedback in a very constructive and non-threatening way.

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Today, Sunday, there’s no class.  I went out to shoot for an hour, and took some tourist snaps.  We all said goodbye, sometimes several times, as we kept running into each other in the hotel lobby or at breakfast.

My flight leaves this afternoon, bringing this great trip to an end.  I go back to the cold northeast.

 

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Saturday, March 1, 2019 – Postscript

Looking at these Top 10 (or 11) images as I write this, I realize that I would make different selections now.  Some of these would make the cut, but not all.  I’m also pretty sure that if you ask me a year from now, I’ll again make different selections. That’s okay, as art is not really a competitive activity.

But none of that really matters.  This week was an intensive exercise in shooting, editing, processing, receiving and giving criticism, and working hard on finding and making the best images I could.  While I’ve photographed shows and sports before, nothing compared with the speed and action from either the boxing or ballet shoots.  The street shooting was as fertile as anywhere I’ve been.

This week was also spent with an interesting group of new colleagues from across the country (plus Canada and Cuba). As I’ve experienced in previous workshops, each of the participants made images that I wish were mine – regardless of their so-called skill level (which ranged from beginner to professional) or equipment (which ranged from pocket cameras to the newest and most sophisticated cameras on the market).  And I’m still struggling to figure out how I never saw some of those images, despite walking the same streets at the same time as they did.

This week was also a fascinating look at a city and a culture that has been made into an evil place by our leaders for more than 50 years – since I was a child.  The people I met were certainly not evil.  The Cuban embargo is way past it’s sell-by date.  These are just people, trying to get by, and living their lives.  The embargo affects them much more than it affects the political leadership of the country.  We may think those old cars are cute, but I’m sure most Cuban car owners would trade them for a boring new Toyota in an instant.  The limited availability of various types of food and manufactured goods is obvious and extreme.  The infrastructure, despite construction all around the city center, is crumbling and they can’t keep up. Municipal services, such as sanitation and water, are not what we would be happy with.

 

So there you have it.  A week in Havana, spent well.

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(1) Yes, I know there are 11.  They’re all my children.  I got it down from 6,000 to 11, but don’t make me go any further.

(2) You’re probably wondering which of my images he preferred, and which he didn’t select.  I can’t tell you.  Due to technical difficulties, I’ve lost his selections.

Saturday was our last full day in Cuba. So we took pictures around the city and had a class. A big surprise, I know.

We went over and looked at the University of Havana and the neighborhood surrounding it.  While the University was sort of impressive from the street, we were unable to gain entry to the grounds and so I took a couple of forgettable images.  But here it is anyway.  I have no idea if the interior portion of the campus was also impressive, or vacant, or a ruin.

What I was able to do was shoot a few more of the classic cars that roam the city.  I know I’ve already shared lots of images of them, but the cars are really something to see.  Also, Sally’s last words to me before my flight took off last week were “I love you.  Get lots of pictures of cars”.

I also got some more images of life in the city.  This cute little girl was playing in an empty playground.

I’ve mentioned before that the streets are remarkably empty of cars, which makes the pollution levels even more surprising.  Here’s a shot of a main street on this Saturday.

That night we had dinner in a (really) fine restaurant.  Afterwards we went to watch two street performers put on a fire-eating show.  Some of my classmates got great images; I did not.  So I’ll leave you with my mediocre image.

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(1) The image, not the fire eaters. They were quite good.

The headline activity for today was another exhibition of sorts: we went to the Escuela Nacional de Ballet (National Ballet School) to observe and photograph the students in class. We were on a precise schedule, waiting at our hotel (only a few minutes away by bus) from the school until they were ready for us. We arrived around 9:00am, and spent a few minutes in the beautiful lobby of the predictably run-down building for a formal introduction to the Director.

After that, we all split up and wandered around, popping into classrooms and rehearsal studios at will. Classes changed at 10:00, and we all somehow found ourselves in a very large studio that seemed to be gathering students, teachers and other guests. What we soon figured out was that there was a graded recital for some of the advanced students taking place, and so we spent the next two hours photographing the best as they tried their best.

Much like the boxing gym yesterday, photographing these students – despite knowing more or less where they were going to be, and having the freedom to move anywhere in the room (not on the dance floor, of course) – was a huge challenge. I left exhausted. I thought I had reached a personal high at the boxing gym with over 1,000 images in about two hours; I left the ballet school with 2,000 (1). Lots of material to review.

 

 

After lunch on my own and after the class, I hit the streets again for some more relaxing photography. Havana is really a great walking town. A mile in any direction from the hotel covers a lot of the center city. There are so few cars that you can easily walk in the middle of most of the side streets without much problem.

People are friendly enough if not always thrilled if you take their picture. On the other hand, those side streets are often in disrepair, there are open dumpsters where people deposit their household trash, dogs and cats roam freely and do their stuff anywhere.

We had dinner in the “formal” dining room at the hotel. Formal, in this case, means I wore a shirt with a collar. People were still in shorts, though not I. After dinner, I think some people retired for the evening. But I couldn’t resist going out and shooting the night scenes again. I mentioned to Sally that there are two aspects of these photography workshops: the formal and informal learning parts, and the opportunity to spend large amounts of time photographing interesting subjects. This particular workshop has certainly hit a home run in both aspects.

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(1) These four hours of shooting – boxing and ballet – represented fully 1/2 of the images I captured during the entire trip. However, they represented a much smaller percentage of the images I have elected to show.

This morning started in the usual way – breakfast, then walk around a bit to take some pictures. At 9:00 we boarded our bus to go to the Rafael Trejo Boxing Gym to try our hands at shooting some action.

The first part of the shoot was watching them warm up with some group exercises, and then watching some of them suit up to spar. The equipment in this case is pretty simple: they “taped” their hands, wrapping them with long strips of cloth, then downed boxing gloves. No headgear or special footgear, just whatever shoes they were wearing. A few of them used mouthguards.

Some of the boxers also took turns on the heavy bag. This doesn’t look like much, but the biggest of them were exhausted after hitting for 5-10 minutes.

One would think that taking pictures of two people at close quarters in the confined space of a boxing ring would be simple. And one would be wrong. We had total freedom to position ourselves around the ring, either standing on the ground and peering through the ropes, or standing on the mat outside the ropes and looking over them. While this enabled me to actually get some good images, I shot over 1,000 frames in the process.

After a couple of exhausting hours, we went for lunch and then our class.

After class, we took another ride in the classic convertible cars.  You’ll recall this was originally planned for Wednesday, but was called on account of rain.  Along the way we saw even more classic cars.

As the sun went down, we were back on the bus for a visit to the giant Jesus statue that overlooks the city.  The views were nice, and the park was filled with couples enjoying a romantic Valentine’s Day evening watching the sunset.  Of course, we were there with our cameras to document their PDA.

The Jesus statue was pretty impressive.  And if you looked closely, he was holding the moon in his hand.

 

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We were supposed to take another ride in the convertibles today, but it was drizzling in the morning.  And that turned into a heavy downpour by late afternoon.  But while this interrupted our riding plans, it most definitely didn’t stop us from taking pictures.  We started out as a group, which is a real no-no.  A large group of people carrying big, intimidating cameras is a sure way to scare your subjects.

We walked past the capital building (cleverly labeled “CAPITOLIO” so you couldn’t mistake it for anyhing else) to a section of the city where people were hurrying to work and dong their morning shopping.  At this point, we scattered.

Of course, not everyone who commutes walks – sometimes you have to go too far to walk.  Havana has every form of ground transportation you could imagine – walking, bikes, peditaxis, motorbikes, cars, buses, mopeds, etc.  The little yellow things are apparently classified as motorbikes, as the drivers all wear helmets. The passengers don’t.

 

The rain got harder, which lead me to try and stay under cover somewhat.  But others didn’t always have that choice.  And it was pretty hard on the laundry hung out to dry.

That afternoon we had another class, then a bit of free time, then dinner.  After dinner, I went out again to enjoy the night and take some pictures.  When I got back to the hotel, a band was in full swing, killing it with Motown, Tina Turner and other American music covers.

 

 

 

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