joachimfh on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/joachimfh/art/Havana-by-night-14671139joachimfh

Deviation Actions

Daily Deviation

Daily Deviation

September 1, 2005
The beauty of Havanna, captured in one moment: Light, trash, a girl and a car. Havana by night by =joachimfh is one of his many fisheye-pictures.
Featured by igy
Suggested by Staged
joachimfh's avatar

Havana by night

By
Published:
15.6K Views

Description

I want to express that i am very grateful for the communication that happened between `Staged and `igy resulting in a Daily Deviation.

All my best thanks to both of you.

This photograph was taken on my first night Cuba. I had already been taking photographs in Amsterdam the night before with the fisheye, so this was giving me some sort of kick for night photography; arriving in at dusk in Havana my family and i were most eager to get out to the genuine Havana, not just stay at a hotel as you can in every other place in the world. A very enthusiastic woman was passing us through the street, and so willingly to make some money buy offering us a ride. The car was all shaken, it wasnt a taxi whatsoever, but there was something about her that we sympathized with, so we went along, not really knowing where her so assured wonderful restaurant would be in the older part of Havana. It proved that even she had problems finding where it was( well she wasnt a taxi driver either as i said), but in the end we managed to find it.

There is a certain ambience that you register while entering Havana vieja (old town), and i dont know how to put words on it really. It is at the very least cinematic. The night sky with the deep colors and perfect stars, the shatteredness, the publicness of lives(in the sense you have little private life under the surveillance), the heated air, the street lights, litter, radio frquencies with buena vista social club, the night bikers, those so everholding cars, and the colors!
Cuba is something that should not be missed if you love travelling!
There will happen many changes after Castro. Drastic. They might well be for the better. We chose Cuba as a destination this year because we wanted to experience before that happens.

So the photograph is this crop of so much more. I believe it invites to some of those depictive moments. The red car was perfect to show that solid colorfulness. Many caribic people just shine such colorfulness through their personality. One person commented on its very colonial color mix. I had not thought about it like that, but it is an interesting observation.

At that particular moment it was important to shoot from the ground. I had a tripod with me to Cuba, but its heavy, and i cant really bring it with me everywhere. I usually lean to walls or if not ground is just the place to get the sharpness that works well. And if you ask me about exposure time, i dont have the metadata. I am presuming i had the fisheye at wide open aperture f2.8 and i dear its took 4 seconds. The lens everybody asks me about: its 10,5mm DX Nikkor. Worth every coin.

Thank you to everyone who has seen it, even more to those who shared their opinion and made it a favourite. Truly. Thank you so much!
*Overwhelmed by the message center, hope i can get back to all of you*
Image size
700x499px 120.81 KB
© 2005 - 2024 joachimfh
Comments103
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
ultrab's avatar