New York-based editorial and portrait photographer Adam Lerner recently spent a week in Cuba, saying that it changed the way he thinks about photography:
I just got back from a week in Cuba and wow, did it have a profound affect on me. It’s going to take me a while to process everything, but I can say it’s already changed the way I think about photography and how I’m going to approach my photography going forward. The Cuban people are wonderful. Their lifestyle is so vastly different from ours. Makes me feel like a glutton by comparison. We have EVERYTHING at our fingertips. They get by with so much less, however they seem to be content. There’s something nice about slowing down. Not checking Email, FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram every 5 minutes. Taking time to soak in the sights and the people. Immersing oneself in another culture and embracing it.
Adam focused on portraiture, saying that the people of Cuba were very gracious:
What I found was that not only did I feel safe, I felt welcomed. So often, Cubans came up to me and asked where I was from. Despite my best efforts with speaking Spanish, they wanted to practice their English speaking with me, which was a relief because my Spanish is pretty bad.
“Sure, I wake up every day looking forward to making photos. I love photography, and my visit to Cuba has only strengthened that passion.” – Adam Lerner