How do you describe Havana, Cuba’s enigmatic capital city? A long-time favourite of photographers from all over the world, it is a city that somehow manages to be one of the world’s most beautiful, neglected, vibrant, depressing and exciting destinations simultaneously. Finding the words to accurately convey the mixing bowl of experiences Havana somehow manages to offer is an exercise in futility but if I had to choose just one adjective to sum up the city, ‘intriguing’ would be the one that comes to mind the most.
What to expect
In Havana, life is lived on the streets, not in the crumbling buildings that line them. That is not to say the buildings aren’t beautiful—they are among the most stunning to be found anywhere in the world—but after decades of neglect and as the result of a long-standing economic embargo, the people of Cuba have had to learn the value of patch-ups. From the clothes people wear to the cars they drive and even the homes they live in, people have repaired what they have rather than following the example set elsewhere in the world of throwing away the old to make space for the new.
As clichéd as it might sound, to walk the backstreets of Havana is to step back in time, experiencing those streets much as they were fifty years ago, genuinely making it a photographer’s paradise. The more I explored, the more Havana felt like a city of magic, so atmospheric I often wanted to pinch myself to confirm I wasn’t dreaming every time I lifted my camera. With photography opportunities seemingly on every street corner, photographers visiting Havana can expect to be swept up in the romance of a bygone age, enamoured with genuinely friendly people and taken aback by stunning street views straight out of a movie…
This is an excerpt from an article by Paul Choy in issue 101 of FUJILOVE MAGAZINE (August 2024). Subscribers, you can find this article by downloading this issue from your subscriber area.
You will find the remaining part of this article in FUJILOVE MAGAZINE.
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