Storming Havana
This photo is typical of the captures that I mentioned in my last post that I would not transform into an art-like picture with my photoshop filter. First of all, the image is in the landscape category that I don’t always enjoy capturing, but who can resist the challenge when presented with a storm raging over Havana city and you have a high end camera in your hand? Secondly, I submitted this photo to Viewbug.com, an international photo contests site that I subscribe and maintain a platform for my photographs. Storming Havana is one of several photos that have won numerous awards from peer photographers and panels. Thus and then, this image has a Felix culpa, that is, an unhappy moment with a happy turnout, or as Shakespeare wrote, All’s Well That Ends Well.
The wind had been howling that Sunday morning, and by mid-day was pushing the waves to pound and break on the city’s embankments. By two o’clock the sun was conveniently situated opposite the dark clouds that formed a moody backdrop, lighting up the lighthouse promenade. Even now I am awed at how theatrical Mother Nature could get. I was heading towards a restaurant in the neighbourhood of the run-down apartment that was our alternative accommodation for the week. My friends had departed early that Sunday morning for Trinidad town 3 hours away; I stayed overnight in order to sign for my travel document at the Canadian embassy on Monday morning before joining the group by taxi. My photography mentor’s agency managed to book us this so-so accommodation in Havana since any hotel that existed were fully booked. Americans were, before the fateful election of November 2016, allowed to visit Cuba, and many did quickly visit the forbidden ground before any reversion happened, and yes, indeed, the post Obama government slammed down the iron curtain again. I came home to Canada to a very sympathetic passport office that told me I was not the first nor will I be the last to be robbed in that country.
This picture will forever remind me to tell the story of how some people have to live and scrape by in that island nation. I have no grudge at whoever took my handbag. I only wished at that very moment, that the American dollars they found was much needed towards a bit of food or medication the family might be in need of. That was another picture in my mind as I watched and shot Storming Havana. The wind had been howling that Sunday morning, and by mid-day was pushing the waves to pound and break on the city’s embankments. By two o’clock the sun was conveniently situated opposite the dark clouds that formed a moody backdrop, lighting up the lighthouse promenade. Even now I am awed at how theatrical Mother Nature could get. I was heading towards a restaurant in the neighbourhood of the run-down apartment that was our alternative accommodation for the week. My friends had departed early that Sunday morning for Trinidad town 3 hours away; I stayed overnight in order to sign for my travel document at the Canadian embassy on Monday morning before joining the group by taxi. My photography mentor’s agency managed to book us this so-so accommodation in Havana since any hotel that existed were fully booked. Americans were, before the fateful election of November 2016, allowed to visit Cuba, and many did quickly visit the forbidden ground before any reversion happened, and yes, indeed, the post Obama government slammed down the iron curtain again. I came home to Canada to a very sympathetic passport office that told me I was not the first nor will I be the last to be robbed in that country.
This picture will forever remind me to tell the story of how some people have to live and scrape by in that island nation. I have no grudge at whoever took my handbag. I only wished at that very moment, that the American dollars they found was much needed towards a bit of food or medication the family might be in need of. That was another picture in my mind as I watched and shot Storming Havana.