CUBA, UNSCRIPTED

Cuba, Unscripted is my photographic return to a Cuba I know intimately—a place where scarcity and decay exist alongside beauty, humor, friendship, and the small joys of everyday life.

CUBA, UNSCRIPTED

I know these streets.

I know the sound of a horse before I see it. The voice of a vendor stretching a word down the block. The smell of tobacco. The way laundry becomes part of the architecture. The way a bottle of rum can turn a piece of sidewalk into a bar.

I was born here.

So when I walk through Cuba with a camera, I am not discovering a foreign country.

I am recognizing it.

And photographing what I can no longer ignore.

An old man with his hen.

A young voice calling, “Maní, maní.”

A barber opening his shop and doing his work as if nothing outside the door matters.

A laborer walking home.

A tractor moving slowly through streets that seem to have forgotten what modern life was supposed to look like.

A child smiling from the back of a truck.

A cart pushed by hand.

A horse carrying people through the city.

And then the things that stop me.

An empty store.

Not empty because it has closed for the day.

Empty.

Cobwebs stretching across shelves that once held something.

A black market where a normal market should be.

A cat searching through the rubble.

A beautiful pink house surrendering to time, its walls falling apart, while a starving horse stands outside as if welcoming whoever passes by.

The walls speak too.

Fidel.

Che.

Revolution.

Promises painted over and over again.

And people walking beneath them.

Some believe.

Some don't.

Most simply keep walking.

There is scarcity everywhere, but so is invention.

Things are repaired.

Reused.

Carried.

Shared.

A life is assembled from whatever is available.

And somehow, there is still rum.

Two friends in the middle of the street.

No restaurant.

No reservation.

Just a bottle, a couple of glasses, and Happy Hour.

For a moment, the country disappears.

There is only the drink.

The friend beside you.

The afternoon.

Life.

That is the Cuba I find hardest to photograph.

Not the ruins.

Not the empty shelves.

Not even the hunger.

The joy.

Because how do you photograph people who can find a little happiness in the middle of so much difficulty without turning their lives into a story about resilience?

How do you photograph beauty without making a postcard?

How do you photograph hardship without reducing people to their hardship?

I don't have an answer.

I only have my camera.

And these photographs.

They are not the Cuba tourists are usually shown.

They are not the Cuba I want to romanticize.

They are the Cuba I recognize.

The Cuba of my childhood.

The Cuba I left.

The Cuba that remained.

The Cuba that still makes me stop, look, and photograph.