The 12th Havana Times Photo Contest Winners
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES – The 11-member jury in five countries has given its verdict and it’s time to bring you the winners and special mentions of our 12th Havana Times Cuba Photo Contest.
The judging process involved three rounds of selection beginning with 167 entries from 22 participants in the seven categories. Agriculture, Joy, Struggling, Pandemic, Protest, 4-Legged Beings, Surprise.
I’d like to give special recognition to our first-time organizer of the contest, Axel Karim Saenz. His using a much better system than what I had used before made things easier and faster. As usual, much thanks to the Jury for their volunteer efforts!
Hopefully, we will be announcing our next contest by November. We will be looking for a sponsor to be able to offer prizes as we did in previous years. This time the winners and special mentions will be receiving certificates for their efforts.
Below are the winning and special mention photos with comments from their photographers:
AGRICULTURE
I took this photo several years ago in the village of Marea del Portillo, near Pilón, Granma, Cuba. The sweet young couple in the photo are good friends of mine. On this occasion, they were picking onions in the garden beside their small home. In the years since the photo was taken, their house and family have both grown larger!
A colorful cigar tobacco farm and drying barn – This idyllic image is not representative of the hard physical labor required to operate a tobacco farm – shot from Mirador Las Jazmines – Viñales, Cuba
JOY
One my great joys of photographing Cuba for the past 24 years has been being invited into people’s homes and sharing the intimacy of their families. This photo was taken in a Havana living room. The spontaneous laughter and joy was infectious and I was honored be a part of it from my perch on the floor.
Good friends meeting in the streets of Havana. Picture taken May 4, 2018.
STRUGGLING
On each visit to Havana I try to bring as many guitar building supplies as I can to my dear luthier friend on Calle Virtudes in Centro Habana. It requires so many pieces to finish an instrument – good wood, special glue, fret wire, bone, tuners, small tools and strings. So many of his instruments sit unfinished until by chance a friend arrives from another country with the difficult to find items that allow him to put one his beautiful instruments into a musician’s hand.
Walking in Habana Vieja in May of 2018, my friend Tom and I came upon this driver struggling to get his stalled truck going again from a dead stop. He was really leaning into it but getting no speed, We got behind the truck and pushed and after a short stretch, the driver hopped into the cab, popped the clutch, and off he went with a wave.
PANDEMIC
Photo taken on the streets of Havana during the pandemic. They were moments of great tension and people tried to protect themselves in any way they could with what they had at hand.
Line at the OFICODA office. Holguin, Cuba, 2021.
The greatest irony of reality is its inherent tendency towards surrealism.
Uniqueness is hidden in the simplest details and most ordinary moments, one just has to know where to look.
PROTEST
Photo taken in a Havana neighborhood at a stall selling meat products, nothing to do.
A protest sign on the bus of Pastors for Peace in the parking area at the San Lazaro National Sanctuary, one of the most visited temples of worship for the Cuban people – El Rincon, Cuba
4-LEGGED BEINGS
On the way from the farm to be weighed, not a favorite activity for a pig.
Puh, weighted and not heavy enough, returning home.
Picture taken October 31, 2014.
A spontaneous kiss and wet lick from her adoring dog is the ‘thank you’ for the evening feeding. Photographed in Alamar (Havana).
SURPRISE
Photo taken on the Malecon boardwalk in Havana. A young man is surprised by a wave. There are sections of the boardwalk where the waves break without warning and give us an embrace of the sea.
The unexpected! – The bull wins in a bull riding exhibition at King Ranch – Camaguey, Cuba
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For those of you that would like to see the winners from previous years: