Discovering Cuba

You’ll have to do some crucial planning to capture this gorgeous, long-isolated country.

- Daryl Hawk

MAYBE CUBA ATTRACTED ME most because it was forbidden. If I’m not allowed to go, I want to go. There was also the lure of a place stuck in time, where people were cut off from technology, a place very different from the world I knew. Which is exactly the kind of place I love to explore and photograph.

And there were those colorful old cars. I’d been wanting to go for a long time, and I knew it was possible: there were group tours under the umbrellas of research, study, or educational exchange. But that wasn’t for me. I don’t like to travel in groups. I want to explore on my own, follow my own route, engage the people I meet, satisfy my own curiosity, immerse myself in the experience.

I got to do that this past April when travel regulations eased up. Here was my chance to see Cuba before the modern world caught up and maybe took over.

During two weeks of travel with a driver/guide, I was able to create my own documentary of discovery.

COMPLETE COVERAGE 

I didn’t go unprepared. I relied mainly on two guidebooks to learn about more than just the well-known cities and sites: the Lonely Planet guide to Cuba and National Geographic’s guide to the island.

I photographed in cities and small towns, explored countryside and caves, met and photographed people, caught the colors and great light of early mornings. I visited coastal areas where fishermen worked huge nets. I hiked to farms where oxen and horses pulled carts and plows, and I was struck by the silence in those fields: there was no machinery, no motorized tractors. Things were done the same way they were 50 or more years ago.