Cuban Fire

Beginning with the Pope's historic visit in 1998 through Carnivale in 2000 I made six extended, self-financed trips to Cuba to document daily life. With a film grant from Kodak - 2,000 rolls of Kodachrome - and a freelance photojournalist visa from The Village Voice, I photographed the Pope, the Castro brothers, teen prostitutes, dancers, mechanics, artists, athletes, fishermen, farmers, Ernest Hemingway's Captain, members of the Buena Vista Social Club. I documented Saturday night keg parties, martyrs on their way to a leper colony, psychiatric hospitals and the first legal Christmas midnight mass in 40 years. I traveled the length and breadth of the country many times, capturing Cuban life along the way. My book of the resulting images contains 87 color photographs. * Cuban Fire was selected for exhibition and acquisition by the Phoenix Art Museum: http://infocus-phxart.org/photobooks/ and selected prints are also in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.