Leicas in Cuba part 2

[j m shaw]

Hello all, Check ot this site for photo workshops in Cuba given by a

former Magnum Photographer http://www.bazanphotos.com/cv.html

sounds great I plan on going in July, perhaps I will see you there.

Mark..

[chip l.]

As a service, here is a link that may be of interest of US citizens:

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40787-2003Feb7.html

 

 

It appears that the current adminstartion is cracking down on those that don't seek "special permission" to travel to Cuba.

[luke_dunlap]

Once again, Chip warns us of the Bush administration's increased

enforcement of the Cuba embargo. I'm not sure, however, that this program is

in violation of the law. There are many educational and humanitarian

opportunities to legally travel to Cuba. I have found that the criteria for

educational travel are pretty broad, and in many cases includes any kind of

workshop or conference. I'd check with Mr. Bazan to be on the safe side.

 

Another perfectly legal, not to mention socially responsible and humanitarian,

way to visit Cuba is to deliver medicine and medical supplies. Check out

htttp://www.medaid.org , an Austin-based organization that arranges

humanitarian relief travel to Cuba. You could easily deliver one package of

medicine and then attend the photo workshop. (You might even make some

good photographs delivering the meds in Havana.) This program is 100%

legal, and actually endorsed by the American and Cuban governments.

 

I think the odds of being caught and fined $10,000 are still very slim, but there

are also still plenty of easy and legitimate ways to go to Cuba.

[Spearhead]

<i> there are also still plenty of easy and legitimate ways to go to Cuba.

</i><p>

 

This is <b>absolutely</b> not true. I have been looking into going for the last six months, working with people who have been arranging legal trips under the current guidelines. I have been told that I have qualified as a "documentary photographer" because of work I have done in Mexico but my wife could not go, despite being a non-photographic artist and my son could not accompany me.<p>

 

If it was so "easy and legitimate", Ry Cooder (Buena Vista Social Club) would have gone back numerous times. However, he has talked in interviews about how since the exemption that Clinton gave him expired (late in 2001 I believe), he has been unable to go.<p>

 

Listen to Chip, please, unless you are excited about trials and all that. Just because the policy is absurd and reeks of Kafka doesn't mean it isn't real.<p>

 

I'm still pissed that I didn't go when I was in Merida and Bush wasn't president.

[eliot]

I think anyone who thinks President Bush cares about whether someone goes to Cuba to take pictures may have an exaggerated sense of his/her own importance.

[al_kaplan1]

If Bush doesn't wake up he'll hear "It's the economy, stupid!" at the next election and he won't be a problem anymore.

[Spearhead]

It's not whether or not Bush cares, it's the directive he sent to the appropriate agencies. It's become pretty much impossible to travel to Cuba. Talk about dictatorships...

[eliot]

"Talk about dictatorships..."

 

Try going to Cuba and calling Castro a dictator. Try the same thing in Iraq. How nany of the hundreds of thousands of US anti-war protesters are now political prisoners? Sorry, you get no sympathy from me.

[david_smith12]

Golly Jeff,

 

Don't agree with policy of the president of the United States and shrill DICTATOR.

 

How many were on the ballot opposing Fidel in the last Cuban election?

Saddam got 100% of the "vote" in his latest soiree to the polls.

 

Sorry the government of the United States foreign policy is not all about you. I'm sure Fidel is a really great guy and open to all kinds of warm and fuzzy ideas. Who needs private property anyway??? And civil liberties? Or a free economy? And what about all that property he confiscated in 1959? And that shitty economy that keeps his people impoverished?

 

Yep, GWB is really a rotten guy. And if you were in charge we'd be in a whole lot better shape.

 

Spirer for Pres! Spirer for Pres! Spirer for Pres!

[christopher_elliott]

You might consider a one-way ticket...

[jim_britt1]

you know this is all such a non deal. cuba could have been

pre-empted by economics during the clinton era except for the

fact that some ideologists from florida decided to fly over cuba

and drop leaflets and eventually get shot down. the days of the

"cuba threat" are over and it's time we realized that and got on

with life. Fidel is just going to live a long time...and we can't wait

for him to die to get on with a close neighbor... we've done a lot

with China... look at how we are working with that country in trying

to resolve the North Korea question. I'd love to go to Cuba and

plan to figure out something in the next year. As for Bush... well...

[eliot]

"except for the fact that some ideologists from florida decided to fly over cuba and drop leaflets and eventually get shot down."

 

This is how liberals view people ("some ideologists") who want to rid their home country of a dictator who tolerates no dissent, no freedom, no private property. Did you know that in Cuba, children are considered property of the state whose first loyalty must be to Castro, not to their patents. Yes, I have no idea why these "ideologists" wouldn't want Castro to be President for Life.

[djphoto]

What Eliot said.

[david_smith12]

I agree you have to be pragmatic with foreign policy. And each country demands a different approach--no matter how inconsistent this appears. But I have to say, I'd refer to the people that had the courage to drop leaflet over Cuba as patriots rather than ideologists.

If a tyrant (re. Fidel) took over my country and denied my countrymen their liberty, I'd think exactly like them.

 

Fidel gets no pass from me. Just because he's very left of center he should not get a pass from those on the left. The Cuba threat is not over for the Cubans. And I'd guess there's a whole lot of Americans in south Florida that aren't as dissmissive of Fidel's nefarious ways.

 

Does anyone other than me think it's a bit pretentious to wish to go to Cuba to take pictures. And prop up the regime with US dollars while at it?

[eliot]

It doesn't bother me in the least if someone wants to go to Cuba to take pictures. I have no problem with that. But anyone who tries to take pictures that might portray Cuba in an unfavorable light may have to answer to the Cuban government for that.

[joshroot]

After spending a month in cuba last Nov/Dec, I can honestly say that some of you badmouthing the country and it's system have no idea what you are talking about. You are just spouting dogma that you read off the back of some leaflet.

 

And two, let's try to stick to photography here, okay. After shooting 1100 shots in cuba, I can say that you have no more trouble shooting anything there than you do here. Especially in this day of photographers being hassled in the US for taking shots of bridges. Yes, you cannot take obvious photos of military personal there. But I'll bet there's a good chance that you'd get crap for that here as well. You just might be the fore runner of an "iraq attack". Seeing as how their army is filled with photographers.

[chip l.]

To quote the Washington Post article:

 

" In fact, since President George W. Bush took office, the agency has been cracking down on those who travel to Cuba without special permission. During the Clinton administration, OFAC took steps to levy fines on 46 to 188 Americans a year. That figure jumped to 700 in 2001."

 

I did not post the warning to start any debate. Nor did I post it as a statement about the Clinton or Bush administrations. Each adminstration decides how to use the resources of the Justice Department. I did it as a service for Americans that may be thinking of going. With average fines being $5,500 it really can make a vacation expensive. The article does state that about 40,000 Amricans visit Cuba each year, so the likelyhood of getting caught are slim. Though if you have my luck you might just get the maximum fine $55,000 (if it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all).

 

Back on topic, the images that I have seen from many photographers have been stunning. Sort of a country trapped in time. Mark, can't wait to see your images.

 

Happy snaps

 

Chip

[jean3]

first of all - this forum should stay really free of politics. I don't care for the political opinion of the folks in a photo forum - please go to a political forum for this. I'm sure there are plenty of them. It's annoying in here, and has absolutely nothing to do with photography, or leicas. Reading here about politics makes as much sense as would be a thread about leica photography in a politics forum. You get the point, I hope. It really doesn't go beyond the usual blabla people overhear in tv.

 

But - as a european, I'm surprised, a little shocked, to be true. US citizens are NOT FREE to travel whereever they want to? Wow..

[chip l.]

But it is about money. How else did US oil companies pump $5 billion into Equatorial Guinea run by a dictator who has murdered thousands and exiled a 1/3 of his people.

 

As it has been discussed elsewhere here the US is very selective in who it will demand a democrtatic society from. Back to the topic, the situtaion with US travel to Cuba is a relic of the Cold War. I would like to go to Cuba for the opportunity to do some photography. Like I said previously there is a stopped in time quality that I have seen in the images from others from Cuba.

[grandwino]

Now, I certainly have mixed views on Cuba under Castro, but some of you seem so one-sided on the subject that i suspect you get all your information from the Cuban-American lobby. There's obviously propaganda on both sides, but to believe Castro is an evil and nefarious dictator who has done nothing for the Cuban people is simply myopic and also shows a complete disregard for the historical context surrounding Castro's rise to power. Can you really argue that the average Cuban was better off when Cuba was called the whorehouse of the US in the 50s? That a society solely based on an extremely rich and powerful minority surrounded by abject poverty is somehow good? Or that Batista was a thoroughly enlightened leader who only had the interests of the people in mind?

 

Cuba's history has always been marked by a struggle for independence, whether from Spanish rule in the 19th century or US in the 20th. When Castro finally succeeded, i believe his motivations were originally laudable, ie, equality, independence from foreign rule, education and healthcare for all. It was a bold experiment of sorts, and, who knows, it might have been viable were it not for the fact that such an experiment in Monroe Doctrine territory was naturally unthinkable to US policymakers during the Cold War.

 

Now it's pretty obvious that the experiment is unsustainable, and when Castro dies the former Cuban aristocracy will return along with Starbucks, McDonald's, The Gap, etc. From what i've gathered talking to Cubans, this it not what they want. Is it fear of inevitable change? Probably. Will they be better off in the long-run? Probably. Will Cuba be as interesting a place from a photographer's standpoint? Probably not. You might as well go to Cancun then.

[robert_clark]

August, thank goodness for some intelligent counterbalance to the shrill Bushites who swallow everything the propaganda machine throws out.

 

Chip, thanks for bringing this information to my attention. As a European I am also 'shocked' that such an archaic directive is still enforced in the so-called land of the free.

 

What is the harm in going there to take photographs of a beautiful land held in time-warp? Does it undermine those good old American values?

 

I have no doubt that Cuba will return, through US influence and pressure, to a land of anodyne shopping mals and vulgar consumerism sometime in the future. Let's just hope that there is no return to the offshore whorehouse and gambling den it once was, with its vicious gangsterism, pimping and poverty of the mass of the people. Though, possibly, Elliot, David and Christopher may prefer it this way.

[james_elwing]

We who are not Americans are always apprehensive that our great ally may not approve of our political stance on some issue and decide to quietly undermine our political system to fit in with their perception of their national interest.

It's not their fault; they are just too big a power. Britain used to do the same sort of thing when the Empire was in full swing.

 

This is a presumably amiable photographic forum. Could we please cut back on the Cuban rhetoric. They pose nil threat to the US

[peter_mackay2]

Danish Leica photographer Krass Clement in Cuba: http://www.jp.dk/fotogalleriet:aid=1179888/

[gabriel_roca]

Well, seeing as how my family hails from the island, I feel I need to respond to "Josh" and "August." Don't take what I'm about to say too personally -- I do realize that a great deal of what the American left hears about the cuban system, etc. is based on Cuban propaganda so, your misconceptions are certainly understandable.

 

The fact of the matter is that Cuba WAS much better off pre 1959. There was a very large middle class, as well as a rather large upper class. Health care and education were free. Furthermore, there were several programs in place, building schools on the eastern half of the island which is a much more rural area that had been neglected for decades.

 

The problem in Cuba was the way in which Batista dealt with the "revolutionaries." Instead of bringing them to a constitutional trial and obeying said constitution, he opted to simply jail and torture them. Granted, he was fighting the good fight against a group of folks who were led by someone (Castro) who many already knew, before 1959 was marxist-leninist but, he went about it in a terrible and inexcuseable way.

 

As for the statement that Cuba was run by the U.S. mafia, etc, etc, this is another common misconception. Of course there was organized crime in Havana -- just as there is organized crime in any major city around the world but, to think that the tourism/gambling industry was run by Meyer Lansky is simply propaganda. We were well acquianted with many of the owners of hotels, bars, etc. Most (certainly not all) of whom were upstanding individuals and hardworking businessmen.

 

Dictators the likes of Fidel Castro, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin are not to be hailed. They are to be despised and deposed (hopefully in a peaceful way).

 

I would suggest to you both (if you can read spanish) to get a hold of Huber Matos' book: "Como Llego la Noche" (How the Night Came). Matos was one of Castro's right hand men during the revolution. He was jailed for 20 years when he resigne his posted as Commander after he noticed the communist leanings of his colleagues.

 

We have suffered terribly for 43 years. Please, let us speak for ourselves. It's interesting -- whenever I go back to visit my family, they have nothing bad to say about Castro's system. But when finally, my aunt and uncle were allowed an exit visa to visit us here in the U.S., my how they cried at the evil system.

 

Respectfully,

 

E. Pirnik Mauriz

[yance_marti]

All politics aside, Jeff there are many opportunities to get to Cuba legally from the US. I can count dozens of group trips this year from Wisconsin alone. Try to hook up with universities that have trips going there or other groups. I belong to a Cuban-American sister cities group that has unbelievable access to to Cuba. Travelling last year we were given the red carpet treatment by most everyone we met and met Castro and also Ricardo Alarcon. A lot of major cities in the US have such a group. Otherwise the Friendship Force has plenty of trips down there. Of course if you identify yourself as a pro photographer you are making it harder on yourself from both governments. Just be a tourist and you will be fine.

 

Any photographer offering workshops will have a license for their students.