PIXIPORT-Documentarty Election 2000 Michael Dubiner Black and White Photography Gallery
HAVANA CUBA-DRAINED OF ITS COLOR
A Study of Decay


The Voice Behnd The Lens
Writings on Photography and Beyond.
With writer, street, documentary photographer Michael Dubiner.


I was recently offered a last minute opportunity to do some research in Cuba, unrelated to photography. I just returned from that trip. Despite limited time and health restrictions, I managed to get in some time doing what I love, Street Photography. These are some of my initial impressions on my return.

As I have explained here in the past, I do not create my images in order to present a fair and balanced depiction of what I see. I did not try to do that in Havana. Instead, I roam the streets, and photograph what is interesting and compelling to me, and hopefully to those who view the images. In Havana, what was devilishly fascinating and palpable to me, was the decay and poverty I saw in the midst of a city whose former queenly beauty still glows beneath it's detioriating facade.

Typically, I would not take pictures of new construction and the like anyway. That subject is not compelling to me. It might be to a historian, a city planner or storyteller. It just does not interest me. There is some of that construction going on all over every big city throughout the world. However, I would not have had a lot to photograph if that was all I photographed in Havana. While there is construction going on in many sections of the older parts of Havana, the "Old City", that work looked to my untrained eye as if it were moving at a crawl. Lack of modern equipment, lack of money and probably a host of other reasons make this massive attempt at restoration and modernization seem almost impossible.

I am not going to make value judgements as to whether this physical decomposition is as a result of Communism, wrong headed economic policies, the United States embargo or any number of other reasons. What is evident is what is visual. This was a country of enormous wealth at one time. Mansions, costly architectural adornments and filigreed metal are everywhere, almost all in a state significant deterioration. Even the beautiful Capital building, designed after the one in Washington D.C., probably at enormous cost, could badly use many coats of paint which would only hide the disrepair below the surface. I suppose that many Cubans might argue that the rot contained in that former wealth was worse than the disintegration of the infrastructure of the City now. I will leave that issue to the minds of the economists, politicians, revolutionaries and exiles.

Time in Cuba, at least long lengths of time, are measured by "triumph of the revolution", as in; "I visited the United States before the triumph of the revolution" or "This psychiatric hospital was renovated after the triumph of the revolution". But for most of the populace, time seems to move slowly. Things can and do run hours behind schedule and sometimes simple communication, in Spanish, among the Cubans, seemed to be lacking. The streets of Havana were teeming with seemingly idle people.

Surprisingly, or to me at least, there seemed to be little or no street crime in Havana. I walked neighborhoods that in the United States we would call ghettos, with no concern about being robbed or accosted. Virtually nobody was concerned with my presence. And on these short walks, I dangled from my neck what had to be the most sophisticated and certainly the newest digital camera in the country. (Special thanks to Kodak Professional Division for helping me obtain their new Kodak SLR/n 14 megapixel camera on virtually the day it was announced so I could take it on the trip-I will write about this incredible camera in the near future). There were no obvious signs of street drugs in Havana either.

In my last article, I wrote about Belle Glade, Florida. My daughter drove me to that rural town, on the rim of Lake Okeechobee, a few weeks before my trip to Cuba. I had been there many times but this was her first visit. I hate to admit it, but I felt fear getting out of the car, just off of main street in Belle Glade at 4:00 P.M. I learned after my 1/4 block walk there that I was not alone in that feeling. My daughter, who not surprisingly had chosen to remain in the car, had picked up her cell phone immediately after I exited the vehicle, to be better prepared to call the police if there was trouble. There was no trouble, and perhaps my fear was based on little understood prejudice and inadequate knowledge. However, in the five minutes I was outside of my vehicle, I was offered crack cocaine and was told to refer my friends. A youngster taunted knowingly that I was "going to get my ass kicked". In Havana, there was none of that. By the way, the lack of money in Havana was matched by the lack of cell phones there, despite the fact that the City has cell service.

Another odd thing, while the Havana I am describing is festering, it is also unexpectedly clean. It certainly sounds like a contradiction, but that was my perception. The worn and faded paint, and the general drabness seems to be as a result of age, poor upkeep, the tropical climate (coupled with being a port city on the ocean) and pollution. Yet it was not a dirty city. There was no garbage lying around and things much of the rest of the world would throw away are saved because they cannot be replaced, at least at a reasonable cost. And this is coming from one who is on antibiotics as I write as a result of some food I ate there.

While I promised not to make value judgements, I do wonder at whether the general rundown condition of much of the housing in Havana is due to the fact that the Government owns it all and the residents do not pay for it. After all, my neighbors and I do not get together to determine who will wash the stop sign at the end of my street.

Capitalism, at least the petty kind is alive and well in Cuba. "Miss Lady" and other prostitutes offered to sell their bodies to me. (Somebody remember to say hello from me when they are approached by her there.) Other people were selling cakes, candies, trinkets and the like. The peso and the dollar are both universally accepted for purchases and I never handled any Cuban money, except for change, the entire time I was there.

The United States has an interesting policy as part of it's embargo of Cuba. U.S. citizens are not allowed to spend more than $184 a day, including lodging and meals in Cuba. With some exceptions, they can bring back no more than $100 worth of items purchased there. I was astounded to learn that the money I was allowed to spend on "returnables" could be used to buy those Cuban cigars that are desired world over. I wonder what cigar lover wrote that law. Despite staying in what I am certain is one of the three or four most expensive hotels in Havana, I had little to spend my money on, except for food, mostly in restaurants frequented by tourists. The one time that I ventured into an "authentic" and extraordinarily inexpensive Cuban restaurant is when I became sick only a few hours later. Other than cigars liquor and artwork, there was little else to buy. A shopper could cover all of the government stores for tourists and the few foreign owned stores in a couple of hours.

The lack of merchandise is not surprising. The average Cuban doctor earns $30-40 a month. A mechanic told me he made $7 a month. Eggs are rationed at seven per person per month. There were virtually no medicines on the shelves of the drugstores I visited and most of what was there appeared to be herbal. While housing, education and health care is free, there is almost no discretionary income in the average Cuban's budget to pay for much more than necessities. Yet in this country of contradictions, infant mortality is very low.

Surprisingly, what I was told before I left, that I would be free to photograph virtually anything in Havana except for the United States Interest Section building, was true. No escorts, no harassment, no nothing. Equally unexpected was the free access to the Cuban people that I encountered. Nobody seemed particularly concerned about being seen speaking to an American. This was true desite the fact that there seemed to be a police officer, public or private, at virtually every corner. However, while I was there, I heard almost no criticism of the government or of Fidel Castro. I specifically did not ask pointed questions regarding these issues and often had the feeling that people were not be entirely forthcoming when the topic came up. I expected pictures of Fidel everywhere. I hardly saw any. Che, a foreigner and doctor, a man lovingly described to me as "loco" is the man of the street in this City. Yet I had read in preparation for the trip that Che may have been responsible for the deaths of many Cubans who disagreed with him during his lifetime.

I did have an encounter with two gentlemen that complained bitterly about the economics of life in Cuba and of Castro. They were loitering where they were certain to meet tourists. One asked me what I though of Fidel. I answered neutrally with the word "complicated". They laughed. They then asked me to accompany them to a "special store for tourists" where I could buy them some milk. When I offered them $1, just to be rid of them, they told me they could not shop in the store and therefore I needed to accompany them to make the purchase. I was suspicious and refused to go. One then complained that the economy was "killing" him. I did not go with them because at that time, I was concerned about my safety. I now realize, in retrospect, that these were probably dissidents wanting to tell me things. It would have been an interesting walk, but one, which given the choice again, after reflection, I would again decline to take.

One thing I did notice, the citizens of Havana were very aware of my camera. I can roam in America, taking images virtually undetected. I Havana, people knew that my camera was present. This lead to my having to ask permission to take pictures on a regular basis, a practice which I do not normally use. However, permission was rarely denied. By the way, the people in the picture accompanying this article did not know the image was being captured. The woman on the stoop was simply waving at me.

Is there really no color in Havana? Of course there is. 95% of my images are "Street Photographs" and 95% of those are normally in Black and White. Black and White is the medium in which I choose to express my vision. While there are all the colorful old American cars, the signs and laundry hanging from many windows, I think that Havana is best interpreted in Black and White. In some ways, it is like walking through a Disney theme park. Going to Havana, visually, is like taking a trip through time. The 30's, 40's and 50's were photographed in Black and White. This is a City that in some ways still looks like it did back then. Therefore, for me, it is only fitting that these first images are drained of their color.



(The author, Michael Dubiner is a professional image maker and lawyer who lives in Wellington, Florida. His articles will appear twice monthly on PixiPort. His work can be seen at PixiPort.com and at his web site, duby.com.)