I first visited Cuba in 2013 and have been there many times since. The focus of all my trips there has been street photography, and my experiences on the island have been intense, illuminating, creatively gratifying, sometimes heartbreaking, and often deeply moving.
Neither Havana nor any of the other towns and cities that I have traveled to in Cuba look like other places in the modern world. From the very beginning, I felt a strong pull to the time warp there. Wandering around Cuba is the closest I have ever come to time travel, a way of visiting a long-lost analog past inside my imagination – a place that, for now, stands apart from the homogenizing waves of the global economy and multinational corporations.
“Reflections in Cuba” is a group of photos that I have taken over the past 12 years, mostly in Havana. All the images contain mirrors. As a street photographer, I am drawn to mirrors for the way they create frames within frames, bend light, and juxtapose disparate elements of visual reality.
Some of these photos are the lucky by-products of serendipity on the street. I think of such fleeting moments as gifts that the universe occasionally bestows on street photographers, provided they are open, ready, patient, and paying close enough attention to even notice their good fortune.
A few of the photos were made inside homes, along residential alleyways, and in commercial-type establishments. The dividing line between private/personal and open/public spaces is unusually porous throughout Cuba. People are mostly incredibly warm and welcoming. Doors to homes are commonly open and I have been invited in much more often than any other country I have visited.
The lion’s share of the photos presented here come from barbershops (“barberias”). Barbershops are everywhere in Cuba, and I have visited and photographed more of them than I could ever count. These are always wonderfully personalized and distinctive spaces that – like barbershops everywhere – function as community gathering spots, conducive to animated conversation, neighborliness, gossip, and the exchange of information.
There are many very simple, makeshift barbershops that consist of little more than a chair outside with a mirror propped up on an adjacent wall or fence. Some of the inside places are more elaborate and better equipped, marked by traditional red and white striped barber poles out front. The worn wood and torn red leather seats of what are now antique barber chairs are remnants that serve as reminders that Havana was once a vibrant world-class city with a thriving economy.
Over the years that I have been photographing in Cuba, I have tried to move my photography to a place that is closer to how I see and experience the world – layered, complex, ambiguous, and multifactorial, in the sense of more than one thing happening at any given time. The use of mirrors has been helpful to this process because I am always curious about the way the story inside the mirror comes together or joins forces with the other elements inside the photographic frame, often in ways that are fortuitous, surprising, and unexpected.
Of course, there is a lot of inevitable frustration, disappointment, and failure in street photography. There are sometimes long fallow periods when nothing happens. There are also inescapable missed opportunities that are, for me, usually a function of technical unpreparedness, fatigue, distraction, or something else related to the surrounding conditions.
In all these respects, though, through joys and sorrows, several years of street photography in Cuba has taught me a lot. So much in life and street photography is arbitrary. I am very grateful to the people I have met along the way, the friends I have made, the many memorable experiences I have had, and the body of work I have assembled.
David Bush
David Bush, Ph.D. is a double board-certified neuropsychologist in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He has over 40 years of professional experience and specializes in providing expert consultation in civil litigation cases that involve claims of traumatic brain injury and other types of mental damages. He has testified in hundreds of legal proceedings, and authored several book chapters, book reviews and journal articles on forensic neuropsychology.
David and his wife, Susie, enjoy travel and spend a lot of time in New York City. They are the proud parents of two terrific and accomplished adult children, a wonderful daughter-in-law and son-in-law, and three fabulous grandkids. They are looking forward to the arrival of their fourth grandchild this July.
There was a solo exhibit of David’s street photography from Cuba – Calle Habana – at the Tamarkin/Rangefinder Gallery in Chicago in 2016.
davidbush.smugmug.com
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