The photographer usually publishes on his social networks the images of a conflictive, peeling and even dilapidated city. The endless queues, inexhaustible. People overflowing the streets to “solve” the harsh daily life. The streets populated with deep craters filled after the rain; mirrors that the photographer takes advantage of to portray the reflected city.
In these images, many of the facades of common buildings, in common neighborhoods, of common people, ask for help.
Someone asks the photographer: “Don’t let yourself fall! Raise your spirits!”, they tell him: an unexpected exercise in psychological therapy pro bono. That you have to plant a good face in bad weather, they explain. (People sometimes don’t want to and can’t see so much greyness.)
So the photographer sets out to please. He returns to his old ways but this time he returns bringing in his camera an exalted capital, full of color and light, preserved, monumental, beautiful. He showers upon those who follow him a new collection.
The photographer plays with the points of view. He takes advantage of them. This time he comes “watering flowers”. He intensely Photoshops photos that are like postcards, the kind that are sold in tourist offices or sent by post, –if anyone still does it– for those who traveled, trying to make them remember; or for those who are not from here, hoping that they come back to visit us.
Far from his city, which is about to celebrate its birthday again –503–, a man from Havana thanks the photographer: “How beautiful is Havana, brother! I really want to be there.”
Meanwhile, a woman from Holguin who managed to rent an apartment on the outskirts of the city, where electricity is usually most lacking and so many other things are lacking, is quick to say thank you. “This is what I wanted to see today,” she says.
All Havanas exist, also the postcard. The photographer knows it: wonder for some, minefield for others. Eyes without rage tolerate seeing all the faces of this city. The eyes full of sadness will cry for her; those who don’t stop smiling will wish her a party. It is Havana: for many, their true and only place in the world.
