This was a lucky shot – two pink cars with a pink building in the background – in Central Havana a few weeks ago! Shot with my Nikon D600 and adjusted in Photoshop CS6 using Topaz Simplify, Lab color, and some contrast/sharpening tricks.
Category: Travel
This is one of my favorite shots from Havana. As Doug Kaye and I toured the Museum of the Revolution with the rest of our group, some ceremonial music started playing and I peeked out the window to see this honor guard marching across the street. I loved the sun angle and their shadows.
In this version, I did a quick pass through Topaz Simplify 4 – using one of the black and white presets – and then brought it back as into Photoshop using a Luminance blend mode. A beautiful example of how Simplify works its magic!
You can see the original here.
Here’s another image from our evening out in Havana at the Tropicana Club. This was near the end of the floor show – shot with my Nikon D600 and the Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 prime lens, ISO 3200, 1/250 at f/4. Post-processed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 and a number of other tweaks in Photoshop CS6.
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!
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!
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