CUBA CUBANAS Y CUBANOS CUBA Cubanas y Cubanos involved extensive travels throughout this beguiling country, photographing formally and informally, in meeting places, places of work and leisure, public spaces, domestic surroundings, in country fields and city streets and squares, some of the people, both as individuals and as members of groups and organisations, who make up Cuban society in the 21st century.
ATADOS AL MAR Atados al Mar (Tied to the Sea) is a photographic study of the 87 buildings on the seafront overlooking the famous Malecon Avenue in Havana, Cuba. Many of the architecturally interesting early 20th century buildings are badly dilapidated because of their age and exposed position to the ocean. Despite the condition of their homes, the Habaneros still continue to live in some of the buildings.
PLACES OF INTEREST AND LITTLE IMPORTANCE At the time that these images were made, I didn't know that I was becoming ill, even less that I was ill, although many of the classic triggers and symptoms of depression were all there in abundance. Nor did I see the significance of what I was choosing to photograph. It is undeniable, however, that the editing process which a photographer's eye and brain goes through when pointing a camera in this direction or that, when including or excluding a particular subject matter in the viewfinder, is a reflection of their interests and preoccupations at that period in their lives.
SEAGULLS ARE MAGIC WEST Many years ago, I saw the simple message, ‘Seagulls Are Magic’, scrawled on a sea wall in the seaside resort of Whitley Bay on the northeast coast of England. It made me smile and I duly recorded it with my camera for posterity. You will soon discover, when you look at this series of images, that ‘Seagulls Are Magic’ has nothing whatsoever to do with seagulls. However, the sentiment of that exclamation, of just being, in that place and at that moment, is very much the same.
3 DAYS IN DECEMBER Images made on the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex during a particularly cold spell of weather in early December 2010. With average temperatures at -1 centigrade, five degrees below the normal, it was the coldest December in England since records began a century ago.