scenes from lombillo

scenes from lombillo
municipio cerro, la habana, cuba
2012

 

sadly i no longer have easy access to a good negative scanner. some quick prints in the lab, a camera phone shot of 2 prints, and a quick email to the blog. old school + new school.

hopefully a small preview of more to come this year...

climb

escalar cuba.

cuba has a serious climbing scene. more so in viñales, pinar del rio province, but there is a strong contingent in the city of havana. while the space to climb in the capital are limited, like everything else we make do with what there is and enjoy what we have. viñales photos eventually. but this is another reason i'm not posting.

peace & love

backstage (mejor dicho: side-stage) at the festival peace & love

the festival peace & love, a collaboration of sorts between cuba and sweden took place in late march of this year (2011). bands and musical acts from both nations alternated the presence on stage in genres ranging from hip hop to metal, house to funk, and of course rock. the two day festival took place in los jardines del tropical, a place that my buddy deemed "magical", with tree house like structures, a castle, and trees enveloped by vines and smaller trees adorning the landscape, adding to the surreal ambiance of seeing nationall famous cuban groups, and a few swedish groups i had heard before (looptroop - a hip hop group, and timbuktu and damn! - a group with a funk eclectic sound).

times flies when you fly places

my camera makes the national paper in cuba

i was sent to south africa to represent my school at a student conference, it was an interesting endeavor to say the least. they also put me on TV. oh i'm alive, so is the blog, and hopefully in the coming year i'll be on top of updates (internet stocks became low priority while education stocks soared).

tv interviews!

Upcoming Project for Summer 2011

SKATE CUBA

I've been thinking a lot about the Cuban skate scene and documenting it. Besides my feet my skateboard is my main mode of transportation within the city of Havana and the scene there is small enough that almost everyone knows one another  or of  each other.  This year I'll be trying to document and photograph more often this being one of the things I'll be focusing on and maybe 2 other projects/places, so keep a look out for negative scans at some point in 2011.

Also this year hopefully will bring me to more places outdoors, indoors and around doors, so be on the look out for reviews of tourist sites, restaurants and other places in Cuba with photographs (most likely very delayed but eventually there) to helkp you make your way to certtain spots or entice you to visit this beautiful forbidden island.

Havana Club @ the Melia Cohiba

Cuban Jazz Band 

A lone man sitting in a late 1950's Chevy Bel Air convertible. He suavely removes a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and casually lights one. He takes a few drags,the cars lights begin to flash and car noises begin to be heard,  people begin to notice his presence in the car. He smolders out what remains of his smoke, stands, lifts a trumpet to his lips and blows...

This is how the dinner show at the Havana Club at the Melia Chiba Hotel begins. From there the trumpet player moves to the stage and joins his Jazz ensemble and they begin to play boisterously. After there set winds down a smooth deep baritone leads his quintet on stage where they begin their barbershop style act. They sang in English, obviously not their first language by their pronunciations,  so it was a bit confusing, but nonetheless they had incredible voices.  

Quintet

The Quintet closed strangely with Frank Sinatra's New York, New York, a confusing number for a Habanero song group, but the baritone killed it. Following their exit a song and dance number arrived complete with flashy gowns and flamboyantly dressed singers. They performed some salsa numbers, some ballads, and had a number of costume changes. The dancers, singers and their overall performance was on par with what you'd expect from any tropical dinner show. In the end I had to leave early since I live outside of town and hate waiting for that last bus, so I never found out if there was more beyond that or if there was dancing and a live band at the end.

Havan Cub from entrance 

The food wasn't the best nor was it the worse, it has its place right there in the meaty part of the curve, the fixed menu is so-so, the a la carte has more options obviously but if you're there witha tour ou don't havea choice. Drinks are overpriced (what would you expect when staying at the Melia though) but their selection of top shelf liquors is better than most places. I recommend Havana Club to anyone who enjoys any of the things mentioned above and a very typical dinner show, or anyone entertaining older guests from out of the country.

QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE!

Cuba y Puerto Rico son de un pájaro las dos alas reciben flores y balas en el mismo corazón. 
 -Lola Rodríguez de Tió

Photo taken at the Casa de Amistad de Puerto Rico, Havana Cuba,
 great people there, hope to head back soon.