This was one of my last shots taken in Havana last Tuesday afternoon with Doug Kaye and others.
As I was walking back solo to the hotel following a dance rehearsal we observed, thi old green car rounded the corner into beautiful light. Captures a lot about cars and Havana! More of my Cuba photos are here.
On my recent people-to-people cultural exchange visit to Cuba, I shot almost 1,500 images during six days of out and about walking – almost all of it in Old and Central Havana.
In packing for this trip, I wanted to stay light – but I also didn’t want to miss any photo opportunities due to not having the “best” gear. I had three cameras with me: a Nikon D600 (over my shoulder), a Canon PowerShot S100 (in a case on my belt), and my iPhone 5 (in a pants pocket). Most of my images were taken with the Nikon, a few with the S100 – and a number of “location establishing” shots with my iPhone – taking advantage of it’s ability to capture GPS location data. For the Nikon, I had packed three lenses – the “kit” lens that came with the D600 – a 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom, an 85mm f/1.8 prime lens, and a light 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom.
I decided not to take a tripod – I’m a pretty fickle tripod shooter anyway and figured opportunities for using a tripod in the heart of Havana might be limited.
On the first day, I carried two lenses along – one on the camera with the second in a pocket in my vest. I had brought along a small daypack but decided not to use it. Wish I hadn’t brought it – it stayed in my hotel room the whole time!
Each day, we were accompanied by a Cuban photographer – and I soon noticed how little gear they typically carried. The Cubans weren’t changing lenses – they were just shooting away with the lens on their camera. Nor were they carrying tripods.
After carrying two lenses and finding that I also rarely changed lenses, I mostly just went out with one lens on the Nikon – typically the 24-85mm zoom. That lens turned out to be near perfect for the street photography we were doing. The one time I made use of the 85mm prime lens was for shooting the show at the Tropicana. It was the ideal lens for that – having just enough reach and low light performance for that venue. I rarely used the 70-300mm zoom – should have also left it at home as it turned out but it’s a light enough lens to almost not matter.
For capturing street shots, I mostly left the Nikon in P mode – with auto ISO and auto focus enabled. The D600 does a great job at figuring things out – and I was mostly very happy with the images I got. A few times, focus was off – and I flipped it into a different focus mode to adjust. I also used aperture priority for a few shots where I really wanted more control over depth of field. But mostly I let the camera do its thing – and came away very happy with the results.
While the gear obviously matters, it turned out not worrying much about it was the best choice for me. Being in the moment, seeing such great opportunities in a venue like Havana, made capturing images such a delight!
I brought along an 11-inch MacBook Air – to use for offloading images from the SD cards each evening – as well as an external hard disk to backup the images from the Air – ending up with two copies of each original image. After offloading the SD cards, I would put them back in the camera and reformat them in the camera before going out each morning.
I enjoyed sitting in bed at night or early in the morning processing a few of my images on the Air using Lightroom and Photoshop CS6. We needed to select five of our favorite images for a group show the night before leaving Cuba – and that was easy given having the Air and Lightroom along.
Last Sunday, we had an amazing walk around the neighborhood in Central Havana with Raúl Cañibano. Along the way, we came across this beautiful green Chevy (at least that’s what I think it is!) which had a dead battery. The owner quickly recruited three guys to help with a classic jump start – while we photographers were standing on the sidewalk directly across the street.
Talk about a perfect photographic opportunity! This image will always bring me back to that moment – just a week ago – in Havana, Cuba – walking with old and new friends in a special neighborhood in Havana.
One our way early last week to Havana, Doug Kaye and I got into Miami a day early and had a delightful late evening stroll up Ocean Drive in South Beach – cameras in hand. Doug brought his “big” Nikon D600. I brought my tiny Canon PowerShot S100. We had a lot of fun – the neon lights were great, the people were, as they say, very interesting, and the weather was balmy and delightful.
This image is of the public restrooms at 14th Street and Ocean Drive. Almost looks like it came out of an Edward Hopper painting from the 1930’s!
More of my South Beach at night photos are in this set on Flickr.
What a week it was. Seven days in the heart of Havana. Old Havana. Central Havana.
The best part of the experience was watching and working with several great Cuban photographers – including Raúl Cañibano. We learned by watching them work, taking us through the neighborhoods – and seeing things we might otherwise overlook.
I especially enjoyed watching Raúl work. He led us – slowly – on a very special Sunday morning photo walk in Central Havana. We’ll never forget that morning – in the drizzle and rain – walking with Raúl.
On our last afternoon in Havana, we went to an Afro-Cuban dance/drum rehearsal – and I happened to get lucky and catch this shot of Raúl at work. So many great memories – especially watching masters like Raúl at work.
Raúl’s portfolio is about to be published in a new book
It’s the end of January – and a bright, sunny morning back home in Menlo Park. Stepping outside this morning, there’s a freshness in the morning air. Spring seems just around the corner.
I’m back from an amazing 10 days – first to Miami and South Beach and then on to Havana, Cuba for a week long Person to Person cultural exchange program. I’ve got lots of reflections from this trip – which I’ll be writing about soon. And some beautiful photography – especially of the wonderfully open people of Havana.
Meanwhile, it’s really good to be home – as it always is.
It’s always fun for me to see what images of mine here on Flickr end up being popular day by day. This is a great example. It’s an image of a gelato stand on Manly Beach in Australia – shot during one of my visits in March 2011.
On this trip, I was shooting in RAW using a tiny Canon PowerShot S95 – and I processed this image when I got home as a single image HDR shot. The HDR (High Dynamic Range) treatment added the interesting contrast and depth to the swirls in the gelato.
I have no idea why this particular image from two years ago suddenly became popular yesterday – but it did. And it brought back my memories of taking the shot – including, something that’s special for a photographer, the smells of the place!
Ah, Manly! Looking forward to coming back!
Even though Father’s Day is one of those “Hallmark Holidays”, it got me remembering this morning that ten years ago, in 2002, we took a wonderful family vacation to Norway – and to the original Loftesnes (spelled with just one ‘s’ on the end over there) homestead.
On June 18, 2002, we took a high speed ferry from Bergen to Sogndal – about a three hour ride up the largest fjord in Norway. A beautiful trip indeed! This photo shows my Dad (age 80) and me out on the bow of the ferry after we docked in Sogndal. Brings back lots of great memories about what a great Dad (and proud Granddad) he was.
Over the next few days, we toured the area around Sogndal and he had such a great time – his first trip to Norway. One of my best memories is sitting out on the lawn at our hotel watching the bonfires around the Sognefjord burn late on Midsummer evening. Dad was in his element!
Dad passed away just over two years ago and we miss him every day! He was especially one from the greatest generation!
Here’s an image from a recent visit to Stockholm, Sweden – shot just at sunrise with my tiny Canon PowerShot S95.
I did a bit of post-processing using a combination of David Nightingale’s curves adjustments along with Nik’s Color Efex Pro 4. I love how these colors turned out – they so captured my memory of this morning.
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| From Scott's Portfolio |
Last November, we took our Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp “on the road” to Dublin, Ireland – recasting it as “Payments in a Mobile World!” with a lot of new mobile payments-oriented content. We had a great group attending – made our teaching easy and fun!
After the workshop was over, we spent a day touring County Wicklow south of Dublin. That tour included the perch overlooking Luggala that’s included in the current header graphic here – which I’ve coined “Band on the Run” – along with a stop at Glendalough (pronounced Glendalock). Close enough to Glenbrook for my purposes!
This image of the Round Tower at Glendalough was one of the JPEGs that I shot using my tiny Canon PowerShot S95 as we walked around Glendalough in a light drizzle. I love how this version turned out – with the tower in sharp focus and the hills behind in a softer focus with their muted fall colors. I can almost smell the place again as I’m writing this post!
Got to get back to Ireland one of these days – for more of this kind of exploring and photography! Have you been to Glendalough? Share your memories!