Digital Photography, A Challenge for Cubans
Regina Cano
HAVANA TIMES — Images (which are fundamental elements of our lives), together with spirit and the necessary sensitivity, are the best tools novice photographers have for participating in the exhibition “Punto de Partida” (Starting Point), at the Riviera Cultural Center.
Engaging in digital photography in Cuba is no easy matter. Everything from acquiring a camera to paying for prints present challenges that confront many who pursue this vocation or who choose it as a personal quest. These hurdles make it difficult at times to participate in other events of other magnitudes.
The exhibit was presented in the space run by the Project 23 (referring to 23rd St), and the participants had attended a workshop on digital photography given by Yuri Obregon.
He’s a photographer, a graduate in fine arts from the Instituto Superior de Arte, and “the founder of the F8 Collective, a group of photographers who have been setting standards in what’s being called the “new Cuban photography movement,” according to the exhibit’s brochure.
Recent graduates of this course, some of them with significant photographic experience, presented 28 works at the center, though the facility didn’t have a specific space designed for the display of such artistic creations. Nonetheless, these two-dimensional pieces found places for themselves in its lobby.
The exhibition, which was just taken down, was curated and coordinated by Yuri Obregon Batard and Evelyn Perez Galvez.
These lovers of images, still have a ways to go in their maturation, but in their works one can already note their restless eyes behind their lens, ones that seek to reveal their perceptions collected after their own filtering.
“All artists (why not call them that?) embark on a journey of no return. Some may approach it as a ‘hobby,’ while others pursue it more seriously. Nevertheless, knowledge survives,” concludes the words in the brochure.