Cuban culture and life on display at Padow’s

Photography exhibition “Cuba” featuring the work of four Richmond-based photographers who document Cuban culture will accent the walls of Padow’s Deli on E. Main until Nov. 26.

Ann Fulcher, Fred Morton, Joe Ring and Lynda Richardson compiled photos taken on numerous ventures to the island nation, and the exhibit features much of what is classically considered “Cuban,” from the meticulously maintained vintage cars to active street scenes.

“It was one of the richest, if not the richest, photographic environments I have ever seen,”

Fulcher said. “It was absolutely incredible because everything there is a potential photographic event.”

Fulcher said he was most engaged by the people’s willingness to be photographed.

“The people here in the United States, they don’t want their faces shown,” Fulcher said. “There, they were very eager to be photographed and they wanted to be a part of what you were doing.”

Fulcher’s trip took place in January with National Geographic.

Morton, whose work is a medley of photos from the two trips he’s taken to Cuba, emphasized the high level of photographic opportunities he encountered while traveling. Morton said there was a particular feeling from the people that he tried to capture in his work.

“I fell in love with the faces of Cuba. Particularly the older men and women, there’s a sense of depth and emotion when you don’t speak the language that’s still communicated through expression,” Morton said. “In a lot of my best pictures, the people aren’t smiling, but you can see joy in their faces. It’s more of a something deeper and I can’t quite find the words to describe it.”

While the photographers said that their work was welcomed by the majority of their subjects, a few interactions briefly halted the process. Ring said a particular interaction with a guard as his group exited their ferry caused .

“I brought the camera up and photographed him. He immediately became somewhat agitated,” Ring said.  “I got the shot, but you could tell that anyone in uniform did not want anything to do with the photograph.”

Although the U.S.-imposed travel ban has been lifted, there are still restrictions that Americans face, due to U.S. policy, when traveling to Cuba. Ring said that his exhibition almost fell through due to a technicality.

“Our entire itinerary started dominoing, this got cancelled, that got cancelled until they fixed it,” Ring said.

As Cuban-American photographer Juan Carlos Ocana explained, Americans must select one of 12 categories as their reason for travel and produce an itinerary. Tourism has not been deemed a valid reason for travel.

“To Cubans, everyone’s a tourist,” Ocana said.

Any type of traveler to the country allows for more sources of business and therefore income for Cubans, Ocana said.

Ocana, whose statements were translated from Spanish to English, helps facilitate and design photography workshops within Cuba, in addition to other recreative activities like hiking or mountain-climbing.

“I know Cuba, I know the population, from the people in the countryside to the city, so it’s very easy to design programs and make suggestions to businesses like these for this type of trip,” Ocana said.

Ocana served this same role on one of the exhibitions that Morton participated in.

“On the trips, being from Cuba and knowing the places I also function as a guide, I make the recommendations,” Ocana said. “As I’m a photographer, obviously I talk about how to take advantage of the environment from a photographic point of view.”

In addition, trips like these contribute significantly to Cuba’s economy.

“Undoubtedly tourism, the higher number of trips allows those people (workers) to have more economic opportunities,” Ocana said.

Dance, central to Cuban culture, was one of many focal points for the photographers.

“We visited an Afro-Cuban dance group. They were incredibly talented dancers. However, their studio was a dilapidated building that only had a partial roof, so before they could start their dance practice, the dancers had to sweep the water out of the studio floor,” Fulcher said.

The experience of nightlife and Afro-Cuban dance was one in particular that Morton wishes he had been able to further capture.

“As a street photographer, (you) could stand on the same street all day for four days in a row and it’s going to be different all the time. Then you have this richness of change and opportunity and texture and color and emotion that’s right there,” Morton said.

Georgia Geen, Contributing Writer