A Moment in Photography
While traveling rural Cuba, predominately the south and easterly provinces toward Santiago de Cuba, I had the opportunity to capture some very intriguing and insightful images of a country residing somewhere between 1950 and the late 20th century.
One image in particular holds an element of astonishment given the circumstances by which it came to be taken in a spontaneous moment, and what it captured to be unknown until much later.
At the time, digital photography yet to fully take-hold by the consumer market, the camera of the day still being a Nikon FM 10 manual camera utilizing 35 mm color/bw film. The type of photography that involved submitting your roll of exposed film to a photo-development lab for processing and printing. Hence, the reality in terms of quality of exposure, focus and composition of photos taken is an unknown until returned from processing .
In the case of this particular photograph, walking with a Cuban friend down a dirt road running through center to this small rural village, the narrow street to each side are basic stucco and concrete block row housing units. Most windows generally left wide open given the summer heat, to gain some air circulation.
As we passed this one particular home, without breaking stride, something compelled me to spontaneously turn, point my camera through the window opening, and snap the shutter. Not taking time to focus, set exposure: nothing. In fact it happened so quickly, not breaking our stride and pace of walking, it remained unknown what exactly it is being captured. The outcome only known weeks later after process of the film.
What is astonishingly fortunate, to have been there to capture such a unique composition; in humble surroundings, the juxtaposing of the infant-child sitting adjacent as to contrast, the obviously older gentleman, presumably his grandfather. In that split-spontaneous-moment, both looking outward, through the open window, seemingly expectant of their image to capture.
A cropped photo featuring the subjects
