Ole’
Countryside, Cuba 2005
My first private workshop couldn’t have been a better experience. I had the pleasure of having two of my best students (Barbara and Landon, mother and son) finally taking a workshop together and bringing two photographers’ friends along. It felt like a family gathering from the very start.
I have fond memories of the beautiful week spent in the always-amazing Cuban countryside. After each day of intense shooting we would gather to review Sylvia and Nancy’s digital images.
It was moving to see how my advises were put into practice daily. Foreign concepts such as incorporating secondary elements, combining several layers of reality in one image, capturing the essence of a moment were all becoming apparent in their images. As always, I shared my farmers’ friends, their lives, mine with the same passion. We had an unforgettable time and it was hard to leave.
Back in Havana during our long editing sessions, we spoke about the importance of putting visual filters on when visiting a foreign country to avoid taking trite and boring pictures. In the midst of editing Barbara’s many rolls (over 80), I had only selected one or two photographs from her entire take in the countryside. She was getting depressed. I encouraged her to go out again on the magic streets of beautiful Havana and put the lesson into practice. She did great. Landon continued to expand on his personal work here (it was his second workshop in Cuba in less than a year). Nancy and Sylvia were able to accept the street photography’s challenge creating very sensitive and personal color images.
Barbara and I are already talking about dates for next year’s Cuban workshop. EB
