More Cuba, Dec 2011 - 028
Image by Ed Yourdon
This is a second set of a couple hundred photos taken in Havana, Cuba in December 2011. The first set, which included what I felt were the best 100 photos of the 3500+ images, was uploaded earlier. You can find it here on Flickr.
This was taken at the Malecon, looking across the entrance to Havana Harbor at an old fortress that was first erected by the Spanish and then taken over by the British when they seized control of the island...
Note: I chose this photo, among the five that I uploaded to Flickr on the morning of Jan 1, 2012, as my "photo of the day." It would probably be considered a "postcard photo" by many photographers, but to me, it epitomized many of the sights and sounds, and reminders of history, that I saw throughout Havana...
Note: this photo was published in a Jan 1, 2012 blog titled "Cool What Will Happen On 2012 images." It was also published in a Feb 25, 2012 AI Create and Design blog, with the same caption and detailed notes that I had written on this Flickr page.
***********************
As I suggested in my first set of Cuba photos on Flickr, the notion of traveling to Cuba is -- at least for many Americans today -- probably like that of traveling to North Korea. It's off-limits, forbidden by the government -- and frankly, why would anyone bother? But for someone like me, who spent his childhood in the Cold War era of the 1950s, and who went off to college just after Castro took power, and just before the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis, the notion of traveling to Cuba has entirely different overtones.
And yet Cuba is only 90 miles away from Key West (as we were reminded so often in the 1960s), and its climate is presumably no different than a dozen of Caribbean islands I've visited over the years. Numerous friends have made quasi-legal trips to Cuba over the years, flying in from Canada or Mexico, and they've all returned with fabulous pictures and great stories of a vibrant, colorful country. So, when the folks at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops sent out a notice in November 2011, announcing a series of photo workshops in Havana, we couldn't resist the temptation to sign up.
Getting into Cuba turned out to be trivial: an overnight stay in Miami, a 45-minute chartered flight operated by American Airlines, and customs/immigration formalities that turned out to be cursory or non-existent. By mid-afternoon, our group was checked into the Parque Central Hotel in downtown Havana -- where the rooms were spacious, the service was friendly, the food was reasonably tasty, the rum was delicious, and the Internet was … well, slow and expensive.
We had been warned that that some of our American conveniences -- like credit cards -- would not be available, and we were prepared for a fairly spartan week. But no matter how prepared we might have been intellectually, it takes a while to adjust to a land with no Skype, no Blackberry service, no iPhone service, no phone-based Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. I was perfectly happy that there were no Burger Kings, no Pizza Huts, no Wendys, no Starbuck's, and MacDonalds. There was Coke (classic), but no Diet Coke (or Coke Light). There were also no police sirens, no ambulance sirens, and no church bells. There were no iPods, and consequently no evidence of people plugged into their music via the thin white earplugs that Apple supplies with their devices. No iPads, no Kindles, no Nooks, no … well, you get the picture. (It's also worth noting that, with U.S. tourists now beginning to enter the country in larger numbers, Cuba seems to be on the cusp of a "modern" invasion; if I come back here in a couple years, I fully expect to see Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets on every corner.)
But there were lots of friendly people in Havana, crowding the streets, peering out of windows and doorways, laughing and shouting and waving at friends and strangers alike. Everyone was well-dressed in clean clothes (the evidence of which could be seen in the endless lines of clothing hanging from laundry lines strung from wall to wall, everywhere); but there were no designer jeans, no fancy shoes, no heavy jewelry, and no sign of ostentatious clothing of any kind. Like some other developing countries, the people were sometimes a little too friendly -- constantly offering a taxi ride, a pedicab ride, a small exchange of the "official" currency (convertible pesos, or "cuqs") for the "local" currency (pesos), a great meal or a great drink at a nearby restaurant or bar, a haircut, a manicure, or just a little … umm, well, friendship (offers for which ran the gamut of "señor" to "amigo" to "my friend"). On the street, you often felt you were in the land of the hustle; but if you smiled, shook your head, and politely said, "no," people generally smiled and back off.
As for the photography: well, I was in one of three different workshop groups, each of which had roughly a dozen participants. The three dozen individual photographers were well equipped with all of the latest Nikon and Canon gear, and they generally focused on a handful of subjects: buildings and architecture, ballet practice sessions, cockfights, boxing matches, rodeos, fishing villages, old cars, interiors of people's homes, street scenes, and people. Lots of people. As in every other part of the world I've visited, the people were the most interesting. We saw young and old, men and women, boisterous children, grizzled elders, police officers, bus drivers, and people of almost every conceivable race.
The streets were clean, though not spotless; and the streets were jammed, with bicycles and motorbikes and pedi-cabs, taxis, buses, horse-and-carriages, pedestrians, dogs (lots of dogs, many sleeping peacefully in the middle of a sidewalk), and even a few people on roller skates. And, as anyone who has seen photos of Havana knows, there were lots and lots and LOTS of old cars. Plymouths, Pontiacs, Dodges, Buicks, and Chevys, along with the occasional Cadillac. A few were old and rusted, but most had been renovated, repaired, and repainted -- often in garishly bright colors from every spectrum of the rainbow. Cherry pink, fire-engine red, Sunkist orange, lime green, turquoise and every shade of blue, orange, brown, and a lot more that I've probably forgotten. All of us in the photo workshop succumbed to the temptation to photograph the cars when we first arrived … but they were everywhere, every day, wherever we went, and eventually we all suffered from sensory overload. (For what it's worth, one of our workshop colleagues had visited Cuba eight years ago, and told us that at the time, there were only old cars in sight; now roughly half of the cars are more-or-less modern Kia's, Audis, Russian Ladas, and other "generic" compact cars.)
The one thing I wasn't prepared for in Havana was the sense of decay: almost no modern buildings, no skyscrapers, and very little evidence of renovation. There were several monstrous, ugly, vintage-1950s buildings that oozed "Russia" from every pore. But the rest of the buildings date back to the 40s, the 30s, the 20s, or even the turn of the last century. Some were crumbling, some were just facades; some showed evidence of the kind of salt-water erosion that one sees near the ocean. But many simply looked old and decrepit, with peeling paint and broken stones, like the run-down buildings in whatever slum you're familiar with in North America. One has a very strong sense of a city that was vibrant and beautiful all during the last half of the 19th century, and the first half of the 20th century -- and then time stopped dead in its tracks.
Why that happened, and what's being done about it, is something I didn't have a chance to explore; there was a general reluctance to discuss politics in great detail. Some of Havana looks like the less-prosperous regions of other Caribbean towns; and some of it is presumably the direct and/or indirect result of a half-century of U.S. embargo. But some of it seems to be the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and the subsequent collapse of foreign aid that Cuba depended upon.
As for my own photos: I did not attend the ballet practice sessions, nor did I see the rodeo. I did see some interesting graffiti on a few walls, which I photographed; but for some reason, I missed almost all of the numerous political billboards and stylized paintings of Che Guevera on buildings and walls. What I focused on instead was the "street scenes" of people and buildings and cars, which will hopefully give you a sense of what the place is like.
Enjoy!
UK - London - Bermondsey: Anchor Tap
Image by wallyg
this was my favorite pub...mostly because they serve samuel smith cask. see, this picture for the outside.
The 'tap room' is a place where brewery employees can sample the fruits of their labour. Breweries often own a pub nearby which is referred to as the brewery tap. The former Anchor Brewery is just a stones throw away, on the rivers edge and was bought in 1787 by one of the legends of British brewing, John Courage. The Anchor Tap was his first pub.
This delightfully ordinary public house is attractive but straightforward on the outside, simple and functional on the inside. The door on Horsleydown Lane leads into a classic public bar, with half matchboarded walls and a red lino floor. The dark woodwork, almost black ceiling and open fire, create a warm and cosy atmosphere.
Through a low and narrow gap in the wall, is a long narrow bar, where customers relax and play cards. Again, simply furnished but comfortable. An upright piano, once ubiquitous in a London pub, is a welcome rarity.
Three further rooms; a pool room, a games room with dart board and fruit machines and a comparatively luxurious lounge, complete the lower floor. There's also a dining room upstairs. It doesn't end there, a pleasant patio garden is somehow squeezed between it and the adjacent building.
This is a refreshingly old fashioned pub. What's most astonishing is that it's still divided, each room having its own individual purpose; so much more interesting than open plan. Pubs like this were once commonplace but now are rare.
More Cuba, Dec 2011 - 087
Image by Ed Yourdon
Back in Havana on the afternoon of our second day, after our morning visit to the nearby fishing village, I took a stroll in the park across the street from the hotel. We had been by our Cuban guides that it was generally not a good idea to photograph members of the police force … but I couldn't help but take this shot.
This is a second set of a couple hundred photos taken in Havana, Cuba in December 2011. The first set, which included what I felt were the best 100 photos of the 3500+ images, was uploaded earlier. You can find it here on Flickr.
Note: I chose this photo, among the ten that I uploaded to Flickr on the morning of Jan 10, 2012, as my "photo of the day." On the one hand, your first impression might be, "Aha, a visible sign of oppression in a Communist state!" On the other hand, you could argue that he looks a lot less scary than the helmeted, armored, heavily armed cops who have been confronting protesters in the various "Occupy!" locations around the U.S. in recent months. Indeed, he looks more-or-less like the friendly neighborhood "street cop" that you would expect to see in any city, anywhere in the world...
Note: this photo was published in a Feb 28, 2012 AI Create and Design blog, with the same caption and detailed notes I had written on this Flickr page.
***********************
As I suggested in my first set of Cuba photos on Flickr, the notion of traveling to Cuba is -- at least for many Americans today -- probably like that of traveling to North Korea. It's off-limits, forbidden by the government -- and frankly, why would anyone bother? But for someone like me, who spent his childhood in the Cold War era of the 1950s, and who went off to college just after Castro took power, and just before the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis, the notion of traveling to Cuba has entirely different overtones.
And yet Cuba is only 90 miles away from Key West (as we were reminded so often in the 1960s), and its climate is presumably no different than a dozen of Caribbean islands I've visited over the years. Numerous friends have made quasi-legal trips to Cuba over the years, flying in from Canada or Mexico, and they've all returned with fabulous pictures and great stories of a vibrant, colorful country. So, when the folks at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops sent out a notice in November 2011, announcing a series of photo workshops in Havana, we couldn't resist the temptation to sign up.
Getting into Cuba turned out to be trivial: an overnight stay in Miami, a 45-minute chartered flight operated by American Airlines, and customs/immigration formalities that turned out to be cursory or non-existent. By mid-afternoon, our group was checked into the Parque Central Hotel in downtown Havana -- where the rooms were spacious, the service was friendly, the food was reasonably tasty, the rum was delicious, and the Internet was … well, slow and expensive.
We had been warned that that some of our American conveniences -- like credit cards -- would not be available, and we were prepared for a fairly spartan week. But no matter how prepared we might have been intellectually, it takes a while to adjust to a land with no Skype, no Blackberry service, no iPhone service, no phone-based Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. I was perfectly happy that there were no Burger Kings, no Pizza Huts, no Wendys, no Starbuck's, and MacDonalds. There was Coke (classic), but no Diet Coke (or Coke Light). There were also no police sirens, no ambulance sirens, and no church bells. There were no iPods, and consequently no evidence of people plugged into their music via the thin white earplugs that Apple supplies with their devices. No iPads, no Kindles, no Nooks, no … well, you get the picture. (It's also worth noting that, with U.S. tourists now beginning to enter the country in larger numbers, Cuba seems to be on the cusp of a "modern" invasion; if I come back here in a couple years, I fully expect to see Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets on every corner.)
But there were lots of friendly people in Havana, crowding the streets, peering out of windows and doorways, laughing and shouting and waving at friends and strangers alike. Everyone was well-dressed in clean clothes (the evidence of which could be seen in the endless lines of clothing hanging from laundry lines strung from wall to wall, everywhere); but there were no designer jeans, no fancy shoes, no heavy jewelry, and no sign of ostentatious clothing of any kind. Like some other developing countries, the people were sometimes a little too friendly -- constantly offering a taxi ride, a pedicab ride, a small exchange of the "official" currency (convertible pesos, or "cuqs") for the "local" currency (pesos), a great meal or a great drink at a nearby restaurant or bar, a haircut, a manicure, or just a little … umm, well, friendship (offers for which ran the gamut of "señor" to "amigo" to "my friend"). On the street, you often felt you were in the land of the hustle; but if you smiled, shook your head, and politely said, "no," people generally smiled and back off.
As for the photography: well, I was in one of three different workshop groups, each of which had roughly a dozen participants. The three dozen individual photographers were well equipped with all of the latest Nikon and Canon gear, and they generally focused on a handful of subjects: buildings and architecture, ballet practice sessions, cockfights, boxing matches, rodeos, fishing villages, old cars, interiors of people's homes, street scenes, and people. Lots of people. As in every other part of the world I've visited, the people were the most interesting. We saw young and old, men and women, boisterous children, grizzled elders, police officers, bus drivers, and people of almost every conceivable race.
The streets were clean, though not spotless; and the streets were jammed, with bicycles and motorbikes and pedi-cabs, taxis, buses, horse-and-carriages, pedestrians, dogs (lots of dogs, many sleeping peacefully in the middle of a sidewalk), and even a few people on roller skates. And, as anyone who has seen photos of Havana knows, there were lots and lots and LOTS of old cars. Plymouths, Pontiacs, Dodges, Buicks, and Chevys, along with the occasional Cadillac. A few were old and rusted, but most had been renovated, repaired, and repainted -- often in garishly bright colors from every spectrum of the rainbow. Cherry pink, fire-engine red, Sunkist orange, lime green, turquoise and every shade of blue, orange, brown, and a lot more that I've probably forgotten. All of us in the photo workshop succumbed to the temptation to photograph the cars when we first arrived … but they were everywhere, every day, wherever we went, and eventually we all suffered from sensory overload. (For what it's worth, one of our workshop colleagues had visited Cuba eight years ago, and told us that at the time, there were only old cars in sight; now roughly half of the cars are more-or-less modern Kia's, Audis, Russian Ladas, and other "generic" compact cars.)
The one thing I wasn't prepared for in Havana was the sense of decay: almost no modern buildings, no skyscrapers, and very little evidence of renovation. There were several monstrous, ugly, vintage-1950s buildings that oozed "Russia" from every pore. But the rest of the buildings date back to the 40s, the 30s, the 20s, or even the turn of the last century. Some were crumbling, some were just facades; some showed evidence of the kind of salt-water erosion that one sees near the ocean. But many simply looked old and decrepit, with peeling paint and broken stones, like the run-down buildings in whatever slum you're familiar with in North America. One has a very strong sense of a city that was vibrant and beautiful all during the last half of the 19th century, and the first half of the 20th century -- and then time stopped dead in its tracks.
Why that happened, and what's being done about it, is something I didn't have a chance to explore; there was a general reluctance to discuss politics in great detail. Some of Havana looks like the less-prosperous regions of other Caribbean towns; and some of it is presumably the direct and/or indirect result of a half-century of U.S. embargo. But some of it seems to be the result of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and the subsequent collapse of foreign aid that Cuba depended upon.
As for my own photos: I did not attend the ballet practice sessions, nor did I see the rodeo. I did see some interesting graffiti on a few walls, which I photographed; but for some reason, I missed almost all of the numerous political billboards and stylized paintings of Che Guevera on buildings and walls. What I focused on instead was the "street scenes" of people and buildings and cars, which will hopefully give you a sense of what the place is like.
Enjoy!
UK - London - Bermondsey: Anchor Tap
Image by wallyg
this was my favorite pub...mostly because they serve samuel smith cask. see, this picture for the taps.
The 'tap room' is a place where brewery employees can sample the fruits of their labour. Breweries often own a pub nearby which is referred to as the brewery tap. The former Anchor Brewery is just a stones throw away, on the rivers edge and was bought in 1787 by one of the legends of British brewing, John Courage. The Anchor Tap was his first pub.
This delightfully ordinary public house is attractive but straightforward on the outside, simple and functional on the inside. The door on Horsleydown Lane leads into a classic public bar, with half matchboarded walls and a red lino floor. The dark woodwork, almost black ceiling and open fire, create a warm and cosy atmosphere.
Through a low and narrow gap in the wall, is a long narrow bar, where customers relax and play cards. Again, simply furnished but comfortable. An upright piano, once ubiquitous in a London pub, is a welcome rarity.
Three further rooms; a pool room, a games room with dart board and fruit machines and a comparatively luxurious lounge, complete the lower floor. There's also a dining room upstairs. It doesn't end there, a pleasant patio garden is somehow squeezed between it and the adjacent building.
This is a refreshingly old fashioned pub. What's most astonishing is that it's still divided, each room having its own individual purpose; so much more interesting than open plan. Pubs like this were once commonplace but now are rare.
1,667 of pinkangelbabe's photos are completely AWESOME! Merry Christmas!
Image by pinkangelbabe
1. Day 47 - Girl with Balloon, 2. modern art is rubbish, 3. Blue pill or the red pill, 4. Day 72 - International Underwear week, 5. anyone for swaps?, 6. Feet, 7. Day 20 - yay my first moo swap arrived!, 8. Day 263 - I only wanted a nap,
9. fish, 10. Day 21 - Sometimes you've just gotta laugh, 11. paint, 12. Lanes bw 7, 13. Toes, 14. Day 15 - girl with scarf, 15. Tomato, 16. swans,
17. In the bath, 18. Circles, 19. open the window see the sky, 20. Day 95 - High key colour!, 21. Orange and peel, 22. old huts, 23. after sandwich making, 24. Rainbow earrings,
25. Day 320 - talking to the ducks, 26. 3 hours, 27. A moo from Briemarie, 28. Cakes, 29. yin-yang, 30. A moo from blik-opener, 31. Day 60 - Happy Mothers Day Mummy, 32. A moo from Just a Girl with a Camera,
33. A moo from Mizm2, 34. purple sea, 35. Brighton, 36. Parma Ham, 37. Day 312 - Christmas is coming!, 38. the eyes have it, 39. kiss and crowd, 40. talking to myself in the bathroom,
41. blue eyed girl in the red dress, 42. pretty pomegranate, 43. green beer, 44. Embracing feet, 45. Day 102 - First shot on my very own memory card!, 46. Day 318 - Happy Birthday to me!, 47. wave lip, 48. Day 100 - 100 me,
49. Straw field, 50. Regina Specktor, 51. A moo from alex.ainslie, 52. Earrings, 53. Brighton Postcard, 54. Day 49 - what to have first, 55. Runner, 56. Day 251 - the Sarah's cleaning,
57. Day 183 - Hello curls, 58. Day 291 - Remember remember the 5th November, 59. snow in skipton, 60. cards edit 2, 61. Day 296 - aka Louisa De Montfort, 62. A moo from Rafael Nogueira, 63. Day 14 - Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil, 64. Day 10 - This is what happens when you hold a camera above your head,
65. rose drops, 66. Day 1 - here we go!, 67. Day 18 - Sarah the Cyberman, 68. Day 327 - Smiles for ~Kell~, 69. Day 205 - Hello again blue eyes!, 70. When washing up its more fun when there's someone to talk to. even if its yourself, 71. A moo from Ninasee, 72. self 2
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
