Eyes in the Shadow /La Sombra en los Ojos

"Far from homeland The strange tree Gives familiar shadows " unknown This is a photo series of daily life in Cuba taken just days after the death of their larger than life leader and another trip recently.These photographs are intentionally taken with strong contrast to show the shapes , shadows that dominate daily life in this region of the world and also allow the color and subject to stand out in their own right and compliment the goal of this project. To me the strong light in these pictures is symbolical of his power over the Land and people, shadows the strong legacy he left behind which many think is authoritarian. Almost every where in these pictures someone from light or shadow is looking at someone else and many times feels like shadows had eyes looking over everything. Suddenly I had a epiphany to compare this to my country USA .We are the Leaders of the free world where people elect their leaders what can be wrong about us right? Not really from my view as given the current context of events it seems to be otherwise . While we may hopefully not be watched over because of our skin color , religion or origin yet the virtual invisible shadows are watching every photograph we see, everyone we chat with , everything we search for in the parallel online universe where a lot of us spend much time these days. We always feel sympathetic towards other authoritarian society's and their ways but is it not time to reflect inwards ? Don't we live similarly like them without even realizing it ? Is there really a difference between the two different way of governance ? Which is better ?why and who is to say ? I leave you to make your own judgements but want to state that everything we cant see at the surface has deep roots that may be rotten than the shiny exterior . The world is seemingly is moving towards authoritarian ways where strong leaders, large corporations want to control , monitor everything "we the people" do in the name of safety , security and giving us the best of things we don't necessarliy need. Watch out for the "Eyes in the shadow " as they are probably watching us now.