Here’s a late afternoon panorama shot taken with my iPhone 5 up on the 9th floor rooftop at the Parque Central Hotel in Havana, Cuba. Click on the image to see a larger version!
Category: Cuba
Mid-afternoon (after we both took short naps!), Doug Kaye and I headed down to the Malecón, officially Avenida de Maceo – Havana’s esplanade and seawall. The clouds were getting interesting and the on-shore wind was strong, kicking up the waves.
Along the street, decaying older buildings would periodically be interspersed with restored ones – or with buildings with signs out front from the City Historian announcing they had been selected for restoration. This must have been a very beautiful spot back in Havana’s hey day – and also a frightening place to be whenever big storms and hurricanes roll over the island.
I processed this image as a single image HDR – although I substantially muted the effect. I enhanced the contrast and the colors using Lab color tweaks in Photoshop CS6.
Three weeks ago tonight, Doug Kaye and I – along with several colleagues from our group – headed out of downtown Havana for the 10 PM show outdoors at the famous Tropicana. The floor show was great and we had good seats just off the main stage.
I was shooting with a Nikon 85mm f/1.8 prime lens on my Nikon D600 – and fired off almost 400 shots (in burst mode!) during the floor show.
It was great fun – my first experience shooting a live stage performance with my DSLR – something usually not permitted here back home! I resisted the Cuban rum and my own cigar – but enjoyed the aromas around me!
One of the most enjoyable things about street photography is discovering a venue – we think of it as a “stage” – which looks interesting. As the photographer, you position yourself across from the stage – and just wait for the world to show up on your stage.
This image is one example from my recent visit to Havana, Cuba. We had finished walking through an open market and noticed some interesting things going on outside, just across the street. I was tired and wanted to sit down – and found a spot that let me just look across the street at this “stage”. There were lots of cars and motorcycles going by in the street – so the venue was a bit challenging in terms of squeezing off shots in between the cars getting in the way.
As I was watching the world showing up on the stage – this guy with the straw hats appears – and starts sort of sorting them. Perhaps inspecting them is the right idea. As he was doing so, I captured this particular image – with him holding the top hat uppermost and really giving it the scrutiny.
Coincidentally, standing on the sidewalk behind him is Raúl Cañibano, one of the Cuban photographers who walked and worked with us every day we were in Cuba. His pensive look reminds me of his look much of the time we were together. He’s got his Nikon D40 in hand, is paying close attention to what’s happening around him – and ready to capture an image at the drop of a hat!
Returning from our morning out on Dawn Patrol in Havana, we walked up Obispo Street (Calle Obispo) back to our hotel. Obispo is lighted with these strings of tiny overhead lights – making for a colorful scene!
This is one of my favorite images from Havana – taken on our second morning out in the streets of Old Havana.
He was just standing in this doorway – getting ready for work and watching the world go by. I was just learning the techniques of street photographers – how to connect with a potential subject, how to gain a quick, non-verbal agreement with them about taking their photograph. He was such a great sport – happy to see us and happy to have us take his photo – and, I think, it shows in his attitude in this image.
In the years to come, I’m hope to remember a lot of special memories from our amazing week in Cuba – and one of the special ones will be my memory of this painter on our second morning out into the streets of Old Havana. Wish I had gone over afterwards and just given him a big hug!
One of the best days we had in Havana was a Sunday morning walk through the Central Havana neighborhoods. Some of the best images of the whole trip we captured that morning. Here’s just one example!
Categories
Che in my Cup
We saw lots of images of Che Guevara in our walks around Havana. But my favorite was this one.
We had one day out of Havana during our week there. We headed to a beautiful community – Las Terrazas – about an hour west of Havana. After lunch, we stopped at Maria’s Coffee and I ordered a Cappuccino. It arrived with this image of Che cast in dark chocolate – a great after lunch drink!
Here’s another “window shot” – this time looking out my hotel room window at the street corner below.
On my last day in Havana, I woke up really early, finished packing for the trip home and then looked out my window at the street corner intersection below. Loved the light – and took this shot! I processed it as a square image to better focus on the car lights, etc.
Only thing I wish had been different is that the car had been one of the older classic cars seen almost all the time in Havana!
We took one excursion out of Havana – on Monday – to Las Terazzas. Coming back on the bus, I started shooting with my Nikon D600 out the window of the bus at interesting subjects passing by.
Here’s one of those shots – our bus was passing an “open air” bus off to our right. These kinds of shots are so random – I was lucky with this one – catching that small window in the center of the frame. I think it captures the countryside – as we headed back into the heart of Havana!
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