Jeffry Plomley: Havana

Photo © Jeffry Plomley-All Rights Reserved

I caught Jeffry Plomley's work on The Leica Camera Blog, and was immediately drawn to his Havana gallery, which features excellent street scenes that are very nicely toned. A Canadian photographer, he has the ability of traveling to Cuba as freely as he wishes; something that we here in The United States cannot do as freely.

Jeffry tells us in the Leica Camera Blog that he considers Havana to be one of the world’s meccas for street photography. This is not an exaggerated statement, but one that I wholeheartedly endorse since I visited the island and its capital (legally) in 2000. In the first part of Jeffry's post, he also describes his choice of gear, packing two M9s and two M7s, with 21mm Elmarit Aspherical, 28mm Summicron Aspherical, 35mm Summicron Aspherical, 50mm Summicron, and the 75mm Summicron Aspherical. Phew!

There's also a wonderful gallery of Cuban boxing action, which I recall was a huge attraction to the photographers who were attending the workshop I enrolled in.

I suggest you choose the slideshow option, but watch it in full screen. Don't miss the one (#13) of an elderly Cuban patting a dog...grest shot!

The Revolution Thru The Lens of Lobna Tarek, An Egyptian Photojournalist

I've started to feature the work of young Egyptian photojournalists working for the local newspapers, who not only documented the Tahrir uprisings, but who also participated in the revolution.

For why I'm doing this, you can read my earlier post The Revolution...This Time Through The Lenses Of Home-Grown Egyptian Photojournalists.

This is the third part in the series, and is the work of Lobna Tarek, an Egyptian photojournalist who just started to work for El Shorouk Newspaper a few months ago. She holds a degree in Communications from Cairo University, and at just 22 has taken up photojournalism as a full time career.

Imagine having just joined the profession and being plunged in a historic and momentous event within weeks of starting her career!

For each slideshow in the series, I chose the popular "Enta Omri" or "You Are My Life" from the repertory of the legendary Um Kulthum, the Egyptian singer who was the incomparable voice of her country. I owe the idea to a wonderful multimedia essay titled Spring by Shirin Neshat in the New York Times, who also used it as a metaphor for the revolution.