Street Buddies in Cuba

I enjoy street photography but it can be a challenge to deal with the fast working style that it requires.  Most of my photography deals with landscapes where I am usually in a quiet setting working with my camera on a tripod.  When I travel and find myself in a busy city with plenty of action it can be difficult to switch from my nature photography to action.  The digital camera has made it a bit more difficult with the many settings of the camera that has to be considered.  It seems that the newer cameras are over engineered for the simple act of making an image.  I preferred the mechanical camera of the film years that required very little programming to go out an take photographs.  I could focus on the subject and much less on the use of the camera.  With each camera upgrade I now spend countless hours learning and programming the camera to function in a certain way for a particular style of photography I choose to do.  Keeping all these settings in my memory for fast recall can be difficult especially if haven't used my camera in awhile. I have found myself writing down the various custom setting on a card that I carry along in my camera bag so I can remember how I programmed the camera for use.  I am certain that this is probably not a problem for the younger photographer that has only worked with digital equipment.  While in Cuba I came across many interesting street scenes and it was a very fast pace type of photography.  I always find it rewarding to be able to wonder around aimlessly in a city and see what subject matter is around the next corner.

Cuba

I recently spend some time in Cuba photographing.  Most of my of my days were spent walking the streets of Havana doing street photography.  Havana is an extremely busy city filled with diesel fumes from the many old 50's automobile that have been converted to diesel engines.  For a street photographer Cuba has it all.  The thing I enjoyed the most about Cuba was the friendly people.  They live a hard life but maintain a joyful and enthusiastic outlook.  Cuba has some wonderful artist and I was able to meet a few of them in their studios.  Even though we had some language barriers we could still communicate about the creative process and the focus of their work. I used my Sony mirrorless camera with a couple prime lenses for most of my work in Havana.  The Sony is a small and very easy camera to carry around all day.