Cuba Colour

Cuba is a stand out location for street photography - everywhere you look there are colourfully dressed people standing by colourful buildings, which they often match so well you could almost think they had been professionally placed by an artist.

Even the sea seems to compliment the colours worn

and I love this blue and white combination

The stalls at the farmers market look colourful too.

Despite my love of colour I am going to end this final post about our Cuban adventures with a couple of desaturated pictures. Why? because I like these particular images better like that, and I wanted to include them! Enjoy!

Hasta La Victoria Siempre

The words Hasta la Victoria Siempre translate as 'always faithful to victory' and the Cuban people have been. As a visitor there is a sense that the revolution is still ongoing, and in one sense it is. In the other communist countries we have visited the ( Vietnam and Cambodia) the revolution has been and gone, leaders dead or deposed. In Cuba, however, the Castro's, Fidel and Raoul, are very much still in charge.

Everywhere you go in Cuba the revolutionary heros stare down at you, usually, but not always, in their younger incarnations

you can find them on houses, as street art and on the front of garages.

Even on doors.

Che, Fidel and co are also to be seen imortalised in metal in the more formal setting of the Revolutionary Square in Havana

While Che and Castro are fathers of modern Cuba, the man looked on as the founding father of the nation is Jose Marti. Marti founded the Partido Revolucionario Cubano which united Cuban forces in favour of independence. He died in battle against the Spanish in 1895 and is buried in a mausoleum in the cemetery of Santiago de Cuba ,where an armed guard is maintained ceremonially changing every 30 minutes. Marti is the only individual or institution in Cuba so honoured.

and finally this is how the Cubans show the American base at Guantanamo on their maps

Everybody Salsa!

“The roots of Cuban music are in my head.”

— Compay Segundo

Music and dance is everywhere in Cuba, on the streets, in the restaurants to the the Casa de la Trove set up following Fidel Castro's degree that every town in Cuba should have its own Casa de la Trove where the troubadours were to be given regular wages. You couldn't escape it even if you wanted to - most don't!

most of the music played in Bueno Vista Social Club type salsa

Then of course there is the national song 'Guantanamera' or literally 'farm girl from Guantanamo Bay'. I have to admit that I, along with others in the group, had not previously associated it with Cuba but with Mexico! If you are trying to remember the tune here it is in a version by Compay Secundo of the Bueno Vista Social Club.

Company died back in 2003 and has been awarded the accolade of being buried in the cemetery at Santiago de Cuba near to the Cuban's founding father Jose Marti.

On one of our nights in Havana we went to see the band that had evolved from the Bueno Vista Social Club incorporating a couple of the original members it was chaotic but great fun with fabulous music and a fair number of Mojitos.

The music on the streets was the best

whether single musicians of larger groups, in this case discussing what to play next

or in the evening in Trinidad in the Casa de la Musica

so come and and join in!

Hola from Cuba

“Cuba has become a symbol of courageous resistance to attack. Since 1959, Cuba has been under attack from the hemispheric superpower”

— Noam Chomsky

It seems a long time since I posted here. The principle reason for this is that blogging and builders don't go well together. We had builders, of one sort or another, in for most of 2105 and it felt like a year when art or artistic endeavours were constantly interrupted by life. Hopefully things should be calmer this year and I shall probably spend some time refreshing my blog and website - but for now I will just say 'Hola from Cuba' in what will almost certainly be the first of several posts as Cuba was a bit of a photographer's dream!

Cuba is a country of colour music and dance. It is also a country of poverty, hope and pride. I know a lot more about Cuba than before I went and from a different perspective. There is much that is good and much that is not so good. The country faces huge challenges in the immediate future as the old revolutionary leaders pass on and the US embraces the nation. I don't feel qualified to comment on any of this, though I am so hoping for a positive outcome for the Cuban people, so I am just going to share with you some of the colours and sights of what is a very special place.

In order to make some sense of what I saw I am going to theme the posts starting with transport. To start off with there are those wonderful classic cars, many of them used as taxis

Few have many of their original parts and most have been mended and remended over the years - but they still look stunning

Next come the vans and lorries - just as attractive in their own way

Next up is two wheeled transport, with cycle rickshaws much in evidence

as well as bikes for individual use

The further east you go in Cuba the more horses and mules you see. Horses pulling commercial vehicles, taxis and ridden by cowboys - we actually saw someone lasso a steer on the motorway between Havana and Santa Clara! there were also oxen and buffalo carts but unfortunately I didn't manage capture any of those.