International Projects

Cuba

In 2014 I was invited to join a group of photographers traveling to Cuba. The trip was organized by photographer Skip Klein as an homage to Walker Evans who had photographed Cuba in 1933 while on assignment to illustrate a book later published the same year as the Crime of Cuba by Carleton Beals. Evans photographed in Havana and the surrounding countryside, and the photographs he made there were later republished in another book titled Walker Evans Havana 1933.   

Using Evan’s Havana book as a guide, I walked the city and retraced his path as closely as I could. In some cases I was able to rephotograph Evans’ subjects such as the Capitola building and other structures. But since most of Evans’ subjects were people in their urban surroundings, his photographs were not exactly repeatable. I chose to make photographs that responded to Evans images rather than repeat them.

Later in the studio I used a book form as another way to respond to Evans. I composited the photographs I made with excerpts from Evans’ photographs as they appear in Havana 1933. The results take the form of six  narrative sequences which were printed and folded in accordion style. 

The Santa Fe Workshops was the cultural sponsor for this trip which lasted a week.