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Two Views of Cuba:
TRUQUIN cabaret i picked up
a handbill on the street seers for years i
have sought an introduction to santaria NEOLIBERALISMO! two inch headlines
on the newspaper GRANMA shouted DATELINE: havana cuba
Vedado is a
neighborhood in Havana. The navel of the in this part
of the world music is a requisite DATELINE: havana cuba |
My earliest memories of Cuba were imprinted by my mother & father. They spoke of it in hushed, reverent tones. It seemed so far away. They intended it to be a possible vacation destination. They never made it. I grew up in an era of political turmoil: the civil rights marches, the feminist movement, Vietnam protests. I stood in the picket lines for all of them. I started traveling to take pictures in the mid 1970's. At first I visited fairly typical countries, following a muse that exhibited little real direction. I photographed small assignments in such places as France & Sicily initially. But as time passed & I developed bigger "travel muscles," I became more adventurous & took more chances. I sought jobs exploring West Africa, Haiti & behind the Iron Curtain. Many of the cultural myths widely accepted at the time were quickly dispelled. I soon realized the political agenda of the United States, its news media & even my own family was inaccurate, inept & downright wrong. I was becoming radically "politicized." Naively I thought it possible to make changes using photography. I dreamed of traveling the world "exposing evil" with two Leicas & three lenses. John F. Kennedy made Fidel Castro a household name. I was young & I was afraid during the Cuban Missile Crisis & I was part of the American disposition on Communism. Armed with new knowledge from my travels around the world, I was intrigued by the things I heard the "revolution" was accomplishing just a few miles off our shores. Suddenly in 1980 there was a small window of opportunity to legally visit Cuba on an American passport. So a group of activists from New England media were able to fly directly to Havana via Miami. My job was to record the proceedings. I had no idea what to expect as I stepped off the ancient World War II airplane. Straight out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, once on Cuban soil, the romantic recollections were palpable. The hardest thing I had to reconcile was that the Cuban people (unlike North Americans) could differentiate between Americans and American foreign policy. Our blockade for years had affected the economy & progress of the Cuban ideal & I expected resistence, maybe even animosity, to my presence on Cuban soil. My hubris was never revealed. I was immediately judged on my own merits rather than bathed in suspicions. I found people warm & interesting & trusting. Their world-view was infinitely more sophisticated than mine. I had done a lot of research but it was woefully inadequate. As a photographer I developed the most reliable method for understanding & documenting new experiences: "f/8 and be there." My client expected me to meet with high-ranking officials at television & radio stations & newspapers but I realized I could not take interesting pictures in dark, fluorescent-lit rooms. In order to see more of the real Cuba I had to break from my group. I was soon labeled an anarchist. (Since then I have adopted the sobriquet affectionately). Alone, I hired drivers, negotiated taxis, and rode public buses into urban neighborhoods and rural areas. I was welcomed everywhere. Walking down the back streets all over the island, I could hear top forties rock music broadcast from Florida. Familiar pop tunes poured out of backdoors everywhere. It was surreal to have American culture as musical accompaniment to my every movement. It is also rare to have an assignment insinuate itself so deeply into your life & be aware as it is happening. Even when I made mistakes & ended up in the wrong places, the lost generations & the accidents made indelible impressions. In many out-of-the-way corners of Cuba, time stood still. Whole communities remained locked in history that existed pre Castro. Discovering them & measuring them against the advances made in medicine & education & art solidified the trip. I have documented the civil wars in Central America, life in the Far East & followed the fall of the Berlin Wall during Perestroika. I spent six years photographing men & women on death rows all over the USA. In & amongst all the advertising & corporate photo-illustration that has shaped my career, I have made a life trying to shed "light" on the human condition. I have especially traveled to give "voice" to people who have none; to introduce peers to the disenfranchised & never allow them to forget we are surrounded by many "sins of omission" by our governments, our wealth & our own callousness. Cuba focused my camera and vision. |
cuba is the most overtly
sexual country in the world in the light of the sun dateline: havana cuba
in cuba time is measured by rainfall on caribbean islands movement
doesnt slow down eras are defined by each hurricane dateline: havana cuba
patience as i stepped off the small
prop airplane i was struck in the
face with the road to havana is long & arduous patience N23 degrees 08.301' latitude lou jones |
