Long Exposure: Cuba’s Boiled Frog Syndrome
As I do when I retreat to a mountain or to the sea, today I wanted to avoid pessimism, but without escaping the city.
Text and Photos by Nester Nuñez (Joven Cuba)
HAVANA TIMES – I don’t have any photos these days of couples, young or old, hugging or kissing outdoors, on the street. I wonder if that spontaneous love drowned one night of any random blackout in the smoke of charcoal and firewood stoves. I wonder if our character has changed and the sensual Cuba is now prudish, and kisses are only exchanged, if at all, inside nightclubs and hidden in houses. Before asserting that this kind of happiness and infatuation is probably waiting for less dark times to manifest itself again, I prefer to think that it still exists, and that the limitation is mine, that I just don’t see it.
In fact, I think it is that: my mood and my usual concerns focus my perception on certain parts of reality, and I exclude others. I have evidence. I hardly ever take those tourist postcards of the sun rising over the bay, and when I’m in Havana, I don’t walk along the Malecon at sunset to photograph the fishermen under that warm light… I’m also not attracted to the Capitol or the colorful vintage cars that tourists still ride in. When I go out to document with my camera what we live, the happiest thing I capture is the laughter of children while they play, even though they don’t have shoes, even though the playgrounds are broken, even though they don’t know what it is to fly a kite or play marbles, tops, balls, or play house with dolls…
Anyway, as I do when I retreat to a mountain or to the sea, today I wanted to avoid pessimism, but without escaping the city. I took that nice photo of the coconut trees framing the shrimp hunters, a few guys who are not stopped by the cold water because they must bring money and food to their homes. I didn’t want to look too closely at their faces so the wrinkles from the sun and salt wouldn’t disturb the peace of the urban landscape. Instead, I imagined yachts on one side and some skyscrapers in the distance. All beautiful and happy on an ordinary morning, just as the intended purpose.
Later, I went to the fair, for the colors, for the intrinsic energy of an outdoor market, of those who sell and those who buy. Again, without getting too close because the particular expressions of the people make me think beyond what I see, trying to discover the sacrifices and efforts to buy a carton of eggs or some pounds of rice a bit cheaper. I chose to make wide shots and try another skill that wasn’t about freezing certain moments. On the contrary, to make the movement and chaos visible, I opted for long exposure.
Without going into too many details, this technique involves using a long shutter speed. This way, the static elements remain focused, and everything that moves is blurred. Depending on the amount of light in the environment, a filter is needed, and always a tripod. Generally, I like to go unnoticed when I’m on the street taking photos so that the presence of the camera doesn’t alter the behavior of the subjects. Afterwards, I might talk to them and thank them. A tripod, however, is a strong focal point of attention.
So there I was at the fair: happy, experimenting. I tried half a second exposure, one-eighth of a second… I moved around several times… I checked the results and changed again. At one point, someone tapped me on the shoulder from behind, and an angry voice said:
“Why are you taking photos? Are you from some press agency? Because the new Communication Law clearly says…”
It was a man about sixty years old accompanied by a woman of roughly the same age. He had a belligerent attitude. She was backing him up a step away.
“Yes, tell me what the law says? Because I do know what it says,” I replied.
“But are you from any press agency?” he insisted, with less aggression. “Because just now, there was a guy taking photos and sending them to his family in Miami, and we called Security, and he had to stop doing it…”
“I don’t have to answer you. I don’t know who you are.”
“I am the fair administrator,” and he told me a name I don’t remember.
“And I am an independent photographer,” I said, packed my camera and tripod, and moved away from the place.
I didn’t flee from the fair because that would be the height of cowardice. I kept taking photos, but I admit, with fear, helplessness, and anger weighing on me. I didn’t make up a mental movie of what I should have done and said and didn’t; a movie where I was the hero. In these cases, my impression is that 99% of the time we end up losing. I have great respect for those who, even knowing this, choose to confront abuse and authoritarianism, no matter the consequences, but I’m not one of them. At most, I struggle to be consistent with what I think and try not to let the trembling of my voice and knees show. In the slang of a young friend to whom I tell this story: “I’m cooked.” I agree with him, and I add: “Cooked like the frog.
In reality, it’s not a story. It’s an experiment and a syndrome we suffer from. The premise is that if you suddenly put a frog in boiling water, it will jump out. However, if the water is lukewarm and the temperature increases very gradually until it boils, the frog, which has an innate mechanism that allows it to regulate its body temperature, won’t perceive the danger and will cook to death.
Although the result of such an experiment is false, as an analogy, it helps me understand my fear and, along the way, everyone else’s. And it helps explain, in part, many other phenomena that affect us as a society. We’ve been exposed for such a long time to domination, we’ve been so thoroughly educated in the uncritical acceptance of power, we’ve been denied the right to reply for so many years (and they still do it), and those who have dared to react have been so effectively silenced, persecuted, vilified, expatriated, even bought, that now, individually, it’s already too late.
Add to the repression of dissent the indoctrination, inertia, and the idea that it’s better to stick with the bad we know than to seek the good we don’t know, and we have this docility… mine, not to generalize, not to say that this is how our people are now, that this is how Cubans are now. Why, from elementary school, do we often value the attitude of our heroes, if when the moment comes to approach just a little bit, just a little, to what they did, we don’t see them as an example? I feel ashamed of myself every time I remember the trembling of my legs at the fair. But it’s logical: I had to face the “authority,” and I wasn’t prepared. No one teaches us. If anything, we’ve learned over all these years is to avoid confrontation, not to defend our rights with arguments and respect, without violence.
The “don’t get into trouble, it’s not worth it, you won’t change anything” mentality has marked generations, and if those born after the 90s or 2000s could have had a different mindset, they left the island at the first opportunity they got. We, as parents, would rather have them far away than in a prison. Because they didn’t leave just because of an economic issue: the water was always getting warmer, and they noticed it, which is why they jumped out of the pot.
Those of us who remain here have our dignity taken away, more than the gas and the electricity. One day, there’s no flour for the bread ration, and nothing happens, even though the children go a whole week without snacks at school.
“Afterwards, they import the flour, but temporarily, and they say it is necessary to reduce the weight (of the rationed bread rolls), and that’s how it stays forever. Or a state-owned company contaminates the water of one hundred thousand people with fecal parasites. And those responsible? All good, thanks. After five days, they restore the service, the problem solved, they say. But where do I go if I doubt and want to check that consuming this water is no longer a danger? Is there an institution that addresses the complaints of an ordinary citizen? Those oil tanks exploded, what response did they give to the mother of the teenager who died facing that monster? The former finance minister is in prison, has it been said why? And what about the person who doesn’t trust the elections, what do they do, where and how do they express their discontent, expecting to be heard?
The Communication Law, said the fair administrator. And what about the Business Law? And the Associations Law? And the article of the Constitution on the right to peacefully demonstrate? Are we or are we not treated as guilty until proven otherwise? Where are the mechanisms or institutions, or the will to create them, that will save us from helplessness as citizens, as workers? The unions? The Prosecutor’s Office? The National Revolutionary Police? We are cooked like the frog.
‘To Whom I Gave My Time’ will be a black-and-white series. I will use the technique of long exposure, even though, or because, we are like ghosts. If art, photography, has a social mission, if art must be committed, I decided a long ago to tell the stories of ordinary people, those at the base of the pyramid, the ones who sustain everything, for better or worse. I hope it serves to raise awareness, to grab attention, to heal us. And I hope that one day, not too far away, love stories will be so solid and abundant that they will win me over. Some spectacular one, like a farmer who kisses a frog and turns into a princess.
