Another Cuba, A Different Fidel
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Ernesto Bazan's images of the Cuban countryside are remnants of a
tropical dream — suffused with tenderness, color and a hint of mystery.
You can almost touch the damp earth, where a freshly slaughtered pig
lays near a puddle of blood, or smell the hand-rolled puros whose smoke
hangs in the air like a milky veil.
The rhythm of life among the guajiros en el campo — farmers in the
countryside — is a slower one that reminded Mr. Bazan of his childhood
in Sicily and offered a respite from the melancholy, gritty urban world
portrayed in his previous book "Cuba." He found himself returning often
to the western end of the island where he spent days with farmers like
Fidel Rodriguez.
"In an hour and a half from Havana, I would be in another era," Mr.
Bazan said by phone from Spain, where he had been conducting editing
workshops. "The Cuban countryside is stuck in time. Havana was more
agitated, but the countryside had an extraordinary slowness. They lived
off their land, they had animals, so they could eat better. It was
different from the city where people felt all the economic restrictions.
In the countryside it was poverty with dignity."
He collected 88 of those images in "Al Campo," his latest self-published
book about the island that first enchanted him in 1992. Like his
previous work, it was done in collaboration with his many former
students, who offered emotional and financial support as well as editing
advice as he sorted through his photographs.
But perhaps the biggest influences on his vision were the lean and
leather-faced guajiros he had befriended over the last five years of his
Cuban sojourn. Befitting his subjects — men who survive with few
resources and plenty of hardships — he learned to be patient in finding
images the way a farmer coaxes crops from the soil.
"Once I started making friends with some guajiros, my way of shooting
changed," he said. "I wasn't the hunter going out for prey. I would get
to a friend's house with a bottle of rum, and there would be a ritual.
We would drink, Then Fidel would ask if I wanted a cigar. He would go
out and look for his best leaves. Then we would talk about life, and our
children, the harvest, the planting. Then I started to shoot."
His way of looking at both Cuba and his photographs changed as a result
of those quiet moments. He took more still lifes and landscapes, often
saturated with color. But he said the new work shared his previous
concern with daily — and sometimes surreal — life.
"I'm interested in the banal, the everyday and the intimate all at the
same time," he said. "These are people who will never be part of any
news story, because nothing newsworthy happens in their lives."
Mr. Bazan's countryside visits came to an end in 2006, when he and his
family left Cuba after suspicious authorities disapproved of his
photography classes, which they thought were unauthorized journalism
seminars. He harbors hope to return to the island and resume his
friendships and photography. And a different Fidel — his farmer friend —
still advises patience, most recently during an unexpected call in April.
"He told me, 'Ernesto, we are waiting for you,' and that gave me
optimism," he said. "I believe in his words, that there is hope I can
return to Cuban before my life is over. And if that doesn't happen, then
at least my children can go to a free Cuba in their lifetime."
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/another-cuba-a-different-fidel/
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