Day 9 - Baseball on The Mind

We all live within our mind.  On March 15th, the mindset of many in Havana was a baseball playoffs game between the Industriales and La Habana.  Everywhere we went, televisions were tuned on to the game.  People crowded inside and outside of bars to watch.  Even the guitar player from the Buena Vista Social Club was watching the game on the wall TV while playing with a band in Old Town.  My friend Donna Scholl, a huge baseball fan, engaged a bar owner in a talk about the games.  He had an art wall of fame with signatures from many Cuban players he proudly displayed.

 

The Industriales went on to win the championship, defeating Villa Clara in the finals.

Day 8 - Dreamin'

Dreamers live and work in Old Town Havana.  Presently, it's a tourist-driven economy.  City structures have been in decline for many decades and most of its people live in abject poverty within the ruins of once lovely Spanish and neoclassical structures.  People within and outside of Cuba are working to document and restore these treasures, retained only through time and political turmoil.

Day 7 - Life Is Good

Twice, I saw someone playing the horn on the seawall of El Malecon, which stretches almost five miles along the coast in Havana.  Twice I was on a tourist bus, whizzing by. When lovers, musicians, and fishermen look out from the seawall, they are looking 200 miles to Miami.

Day 6 - Musical Spirit

The spirit searches for what it needs: passion, lift and release.  It can be found in so many places in Cuba and one of those is the music.  Electricity, joy, flirtation and rhythm emanate from the musicians and singers, intoxicating and inviting all around to join in the dance of life.

Day 5 - The Dancer

This Flamenco dancer was waiting, mid morning for his club to open.  His smoking challenged part of my perspective of what I envisioned a dancer to be.  But other than that, he was vital, appeared healthy, young, strong, and possessed a bright, kind smile. 

Day 4 - 51 Years

51 years is a long time for someone to run a country.  Not much appears to have changed, regarding the country's physical infrastructure, since the Castro regime took over Cuba in 1959.  Yet, despite that lack of change, nature has accomplished it's greatest transformation.

Day 3 - The Street Sweeper

This lovely lady was sweeping at Plaza Viejo in Old Town Havana.  She kept her composure even with a cadre of photographers descending upon her. 

Day 2 - The Barber

People were getting serviced at the barber shop across from my hotel when I walked out for breakfast.  As people went about their lives, most were very open and congenial to being photographed. 

I brought a small printer on my trip and several days after taking this and other pictures, I brought prints to everyone working at the shop. They were thrilled!  The owner, who wasn't there the day I photographed the others, asked me to take one of him.   I snapped a couple while he worked, ran up to my room, and returned five minutes later with his prints.  This is the joy of digital photography.  He smiled and kissed my hand.

100 Day Project

I'm starting my 100 Day project 3 days late.  One Hundred Days is a summer collaborative project put into motion by artist volunteers.  For more information, go to http://onehundreddays.net/?p=19

My intent is to put a collection of images together from my Cuba trip.

This is for Day 1 and it's a view from my window in Old Town Havana.   Around 7am it sounded like Grand Central Station outside my window.  People yelling, talking, singing... .  My first day in this old world.