Campesino + Manos, El Campo, Cuba, Verano de 2015

Last year Alejandro was able to fix his car during our second month and we headed out to the countryside more frequently than our first four weeks. We would photograph our families in the morning and then head out to the countryside for the afternoon. We did this because our afternoons were never very predictable regarding the weather.

We ran across the most wonderful people, and slowed the process of photography down quite a bit. This was a relief actually, and allowed me to reflect much more so on my vision. It also allowed us to speak with the people much more, and select the moments when we wanted to photograph.

This wonderful man lived in a town east of the capital by at least one hour. We were on our way back from the far side of the island and decided to take an exit and explore. We saw a home and decided to photograph it. As we finished we noticed this handsome man sitting next door. We walked over and asked to make his portrait, and he responded most eloquently and positively.

We talked for some time while he enjoyed his cigar, then made our way to the back of the home for his portrait. His demeanor won my heart immediately, and I am overjoyed to see the success of his portrait in these two samples from the proof just scanned last week!

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Note: This image was made with a Hasselblad 555 ELD/180 mm combination onto Kodak TMX film.

Landscape from Temple, Virat Nagar, Rajasthan, 2015

This weekend has been spent scanning the film from my l art trip to India. The recent film was dropped off to the lab in D.C. and the processed film from 2015 was picked up.

In this image we were visiting a temple near the three schools located in Virat Nagar, Rajasthan. This is the view from above, and is typical of the region. This is where my photography in India began, and where it continues to this day.

When the schools we had documented closed in 2010, we found the support to begin the rebuilding process. Now Nirvana Bodhisattva and his team at Nirvanavan Foundation have taken the lead and helped restore our initial three schools.

I look forward to more than just the three schools, and to restoring the faith these families had in us prior to the closure of the schools!

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Note: This image was made with a Hasselblad 555 ELD/180 mm combination onto Kodak TMX film.

Ballerina + Racquetball Court, Santa Maria del Mar, Cuba, 2015

Then we have this incredible setting, and the most perfect light. Just as we can depend on clouds forming in the afternoon on the island, we can almost depend on having the most exquisite light in the morning. While it is frustrating at times depending on the weather, it does make the photographs the much more meaningful.

So when we arrive at this racquetball court and see clear skies, we pinch ourselves. This young dancer has blossomed during our time with her family, and has now become one of our 'veterans' barely out of her single digits. She goes from one position to another without reservation, and almost always says 'yes' to our collaborations.

Her family lives in the city, and we pick them up thanks to Alejandro an hour before sunrise. She is always perfectly ready, and a professional in every way. She is still of course a young girl, and treats this racquetball court as important as any stage in the world. The sunlight hits each surface differently, giving us three beautiful tones in monochrome to compliment her multiple facets.

Her attitude in this image specifically left me speechless!

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Note: This image was made with a Sony RX100M2.

Riverbed, Shamli District, Uttar Pradesh, India, 2016

As we went home after making the previous portrait, this was the scene we witnessed. At almost its lowest point, the river soon will regain its strength from the monsoon rains. We hope that this time next year the river will also witness a new school in one of its neighboring villages… and that this week's presentations contribute immensely. 

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Note: This image was made with a Sony RX100M3, hand-held and with available light as the sun set.

Young Student + Classroom, Madhya Pradesh, India, 2016

This past visit to India I had the honor of visiting a few villages and documenting the students in various schools, thanks to our hosts Imdadullah and Munshad Ali Chauhan. The trip ended with a visit by Nirvana and his wonderful team at Nirvanavan Foundation.

We visited an area from three years ago, an area affected deeply by the riots of Muzaffarnagar, in which hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims were displaced and harmed beyond description. When Nirvana learned about my plan to visit the area this year, he asked if his team could also visit... perhaps exploring the idea of an inter-faith collaboration.

The visit was so much better than expected. Our hosts of course went well out of their way for us, as expected from my previous visits. However the community embraced the thought of an inter-faith collaboration beautifully, especially the children who watched and listened as Nirvana and his team spoke. It was an enlightening experience and one which has energized me to reach out to the American Muslim community upon my return to the States this weekend.

This young girl attends the government school in our hosts' village. Her school day begins at the mosque, where her classes include Arabic and Islamic courses. Shortly after she and her classmates walk to the government school building where her other classes begin.

We made her portrait in an unused classroom, using a reflector held by my dear friend Javed. Thanks to Imdadullah and Mushad, the leaders of this community, we were able to make this image, otherwise an impossible one to make.

I hope to honor their cooperation, and the spirit of this young girl soon with my efforts to find funding for their schools. The venture is a promising one to write the least, especially in this deeply fractured spot of India.

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Note: This image was made with a Sony RX100M3 using a reflector.

Ballerina + Contemporary Dancer, Santa Maria del Mar, Cuba, 2015

When it comes to her imagination limits are irrelevant. She sees another dancer and ideas immediately appear in her exquisite mind. This was the case one day when we went to pick her up from dance school. She introduced us to this incredible, young man and we instantly agreed on a collaboration. 

Their forms of dance were quite different, yet they meshed beautifully. He was a few years older and took on the roll with elegance and grace. She accepted his direction with humility and we were there to witness the dance between ballet and contemporary dance... releasing the shutter as they allowed us to do so.

This young man was perfectly ready when we picked him up, and was the same in front of the lens. His physical endurance was admirable, and he gave 110% under the heat of the sun as if he was on a grand stage. This goes the same of course for the Magnificent One, for at only 14 years old she has been photographed by me for over seven years.

I look forward to this summer, and hope we can do much more for these two together!

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Note: This image was made with a Sony RX100M2.

Campesino + Field, San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, 2013

When we drove by this man in the field, he was making sure that the water flowed freely. We decided to stop and ask for his portrait, and were glad we did. He was working for the owner of that plot of land, and earned barely enough to support his family living less than a hundred meters from this very spot.

He had taken a break to speak with Alejandro, and I took advantage of the moment to get down on the ground and make photographs in the style of the Soviet era masters, placing themselves below the workers. Knowing Alejandro's propensity to converse at length with his fellow campesinos, I had plenty of time to compose the images.

What moved me most was to be in the midst of this incredible conversation, and to be unnoticed while making a visual record of the audible. We did return that same day incredibly to hand him the photographs, and were able to see his home adjacent to these fields. He worked the fields for someone else, and barely made ends meet as described above. He told us that sometimes the youth come by at night and steal the crops to sale the next morning on the road, that in one hour they steal enough to make more than he does working in the hot sun all day.

He pointed out to us that almost all of the workers in his area were older men, while the younger men had fun during the day, and stole the crops by night. Only by having such conversations can I learn about such difficult lives. Only by being with Alejandro would this man have ever shared such intimate details of his life with a stranger from up north.

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Note: These images were made with a Hasselblad 555 ELD/60 mm lens combination onto Fuji Neopan Acros 100 ISO film.

Students + Friends, Humana India, Madhya Pradesh, India, 2016

This year was my first visit to this beautiful region of India, and a true blessing. Many described the area as being tribal, but that gave me little insight as to the people themselves. Upon arriving it was evident to me that the communities were extremely serene, kind and gentle. 

The smiles came to the girls' faces much more easily, and the boys were exceptionally courteous. Photographing the children was quite easy, and gave me a chance to rest during the second half of my first month. Even though the drive was exhausting, the serenity of the people and the stunning landscape energized me.

These girls attend a government school in collaboration with Humana India. The foundation worked for one year in this area, and designed a system which would take out-of-school children and bring them into the formal, government system. My hope is that the children are in fact now enrolled and will continue onto secondary schools.

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Note: These images were made with a Sony RX100M3.

Young Woman + City Slum, Gurgaon, Haryana, India, 2016

This is the second face from our series in that Gurgaon neighborhood, rewarding our initiative to find the families from last year. As described in the previous post, we drove to Gurgaon from Mewat on a hunch and found this slum with the help of a sincere colleague. 

She however was a new discovery for us, as she walked up to the commotion happening around the photography. Out of the corner of my eye her features appeared, and my heart stopped. We had to act delicately, because doing so in another way would perhaps push her away. So we decided to photograph the girls in order, and included her very cautiously. She accepted with a smile, knowing full well that I wanted to photograph her.

So when her turn came up and she actually stepped up, my heart regained its composure. Now many will think, 'what's so special about her?' Those who see her strength in this image will never ask such a question. For those unable to do so, there is little that I can say to answer their question.

For me, she is as perfect as any in my work, equal and different at the same time. Her features are unlike any from my experience, truly captivating. My hope is that the world around her will treat her community with more kindness, and that the inequity she experiences every single day will be a thing of the past soon. Until then the work will continue!

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Note: This image was made with a Sony RX100M3.

Migrant + Shawl, Gurgaon, Haryana, India, 2016

Last year we were able to visit a few slums in Gurgaon, and to witness the extreme contrasts of the city often times described as 'Millennium City.' Home to 250 Fortune 500 companies, it is also home to countless slums in which live migrants from all over India.

Whenever a high rise goes up, an entire neighborhood is created as its construction workers, its security guards and its housemaids. As we ran across a building under construction, we would drive a bit closer and almost always see such a scene. The families often times lived in single rooms with metal roofs, temperatures rising well over the surroundings at anytime.

In such a neighborhood this girl lives, and we made the effort to locate her and her friends this past summer. Last year we photographed them with the guidance of the foundation. Their faces were etched in my mind.

This time around we were forced to take it upon ourselves to find them, and did so thanks to the help of one volunteer who took the time to do so in spite of the lack of support from above. While he recognized the slum thanks to my description from last year, it was one in which he had never worked.

The three of us walked into the slum without our cameras at first, looking for those faces. As soon as we had a following, we showed one face to them... and all recognized her. They walked us over to her tent, and there she was... as magnificent as she was the previous year... and then some!

Seeing that we knew the children, the community relaxed a bit and helped us gather the children for an afternoon of photography. We found a beautiful wall at the end of the alley, and made a plan between us as to how we were to proceed. We talked about photographing the boys first, allowing us to photograph the girls more peacefully.

From my experience, enlisting the help of one or two young men had always helped... and so we did so here as well. While I was worried that some of the girls would walk away in all of the confusion, they remained steadfast and presented themselves with such power and dignity when their time came.

Such was the case with this young girl. There were perhaps over sixty people gathered, yet she concentrated on the lens in front of her only. The light was magnificent, striking gently her eyes and allowing her to look straight ahead without strain.

Her features are as refined as any strolling the fashion strips of the world, while the honesty of her expression is unmatched. For her this work continues, and my hope is that the school in her community continues to operate indefinitely. Next year we will look for her and her sisters again, and hope that life is a little less cruel as well.

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Note: This portrait was made using a Sony RX100M3.