Alex Webb/Rebecca Webb: Violet Isle

Few people interested in photography don't know who Alex Webb is, so I'll keep this introduction brief.

He began working as a professional photojournalist in 1974, and joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1976, and a full member in 1979. He photographed extensively in the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and in Turkey. His photographs have appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Life, Geo, Stern, and National Geographic, and has published many books.

Rebecca Norris-Webb is an international photographer and poet.

Violet Isle is featured by Magnum In Motion, and showcases Alexs exploration of the streets of Cuba and Rebeccas discovery of unique and sometimes mysterious animals. While the photography styles of this husband-wife team is distinctly different, they decided decided to weave their images together to create a multi-layered portrait Cuba.

While you watch the audio slideshow, you'll see this combination of the two styles...the typical street scenes, color saturated with lots of shadows, reflections, sun-drenched walls...and more ethereally, many caged birds, a metaphor for Cubans. The soulful soundtrack is Silencio by the Buena Vista Social Club.

Would I have preferred to hear a soundtrack of ambient audio and music recorded in the streets of Havana instead? Yes, of course...no question about it. That being said, anything by the Buena Vista Social Club is great.

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Jeffry Plomley: Havana

Photo Jeffry Plomley-All Rights Reserved

I caught Jeffry Plomley's work on The Leica Camera Blog, and was immediately drawn to his Havana gallery, which features excellent street scenes that are very nicely toned. A Canadian photographer, he has the ability of traveling to Cuba as freely as he wishes; something that we here in The United States cannot do as freely.

Jeffry tells us in the Leica Camera Blog that he considers Havana to be one of the worlds meccas for street photography. This is not an exaggerated statement, but one that I wholeheartedly endorse since I visited the island and its capital (legally) in 2000. In the first part of Jeffry's post, he also describes his choice of gear, packing two M9s and two M7s, with 21mm Elmarit Aspherical, 28mm Summicron Aspherical, 35mm Summicron Aspherical, 50mm Summicron, and the 75mm Summicron Aspherical. Phew!

There's also a wonderful gallery of Cuban boxing action, which I recall was a huge attraction to the photographers who were attending the workshop I enrolled in.

I suggest you choose the slideshow option, but watch it in full screen. Don't miss the one (#13) of an elderly Cuban patting a dog...grest shot!

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Jan Sochor: The Palo In Cuba

Photo  Jan Sochor -All Rights Reserved
Jan Sochor is a freelance photographer, working between South America and Europe. He lived and worked in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain and the Czech Republic during the past five years. His photographs and stories have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and websites, including Sunday Times, National Geographic, Reuters, Burn magazine, Foto8, 100Eyes, UNESCO, Boston Review, PDN online,and others.

In this 3 minutes audio-slideshow, Jan has now focused his lenses on the adherents of the Palo religion, also known as Las Reglas de Congo. Palo is a syncretic religion which developed in Cuba amongst Central African slaves. Due to forced evangelicalism, Palo adherents gave their deities names from the Christian faith to continue their spiritual tradition.

Palo's main tenets are the veneration of ancestors' spirits, and belief in natural powers. The Palo pantheon starts at the creator god, Nzambi.

Highly recommended viewing for those of us who document, and are interested in, global spiritual traditions.

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Landon Nordeman: The Sugar Train (Cuba)

The Atlantic magazine recently featured this slideshow (they call it video) of photographs by Landon Nordeman during a train journey in Cuba.

It's accompanied by an evocatively written article by Michael Scott Moore titled The 12:39 To Matanzas, which I enjoyed. However, I can't say the same of the slideshow. Clearly cobbled together by someone with an inordinate affection for panning and camera movements, I don't think I've seen a single frame in the slideshow (or video) that doesn't have the annoying pan from one side to the other, or going from one direction to the other, without a real reason for the movement.

I always start off my multimedia classes and workshops by telling participants to keep their projects simple, and to use effects sparingly, and only when it's absolutely required to underscore a visual point. In fact, I'll use this slideshow to demonstrate to my future classes what not to do. As to the use of a sound track from a Buena Vista Club album, ambient sound recorded in the train, peoples' voices, perhaps an impromptu song by a passenger...would have helped turn this feature around. Heck, what about the guy with the accordion in the train?

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LA Times: A Step Back In Time, Cuba

Gail Fisher for The Los Angeles Times-All Rights Reserved
Here's another multimedia feature from The Los Angeles Times. This one is on Cuba, and the photographs and narration are by Gail Fisher, who's the Senior Photo Editor for the newspaper.

Gail has spent the past twenty years of her career traveling extensively throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central America covering social issues, and has won numerous awards.

I expected much more from such a renowned photographer/editor, but the feature verges on a 'ho-hum' collection of photographs of Cuba that any photographer without Gail's experience and access could have easily captured. A few photographs stand out (like the one above), but the large majority are pedestrian. Although Cuba receives over 2,000,000 tourists a year, only 40,000 are from the United States and are generally not tourists but journalists and human rights staff, so who is the target of this consumer-oriented travel feature...our Canadian neighbors?

As Gail says, Cuba has a legendary mystique which makes it a great tourist destination. Yes, we know and most of us want to go! As I wrote in an earlier post, how can anyone justify political isolation, impose economic sanctions and literally prevent its citizens to visit this enchanting island because of trumped up political ideology is beyond comprehension.

Here's Gail Fisher's A Step Back In Time, Cuba

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