Hey, my friend, where you from, do you have a dollar? These are the first phrases you hear on the streets of Havana, Cuba. Havana is in your face, oozing energy and rhythmic life. One afternoon, while walking through the narrow streets and barrios of Havana Vieja, I became part of the daily activities. Families sit outside their modest apartment’s doorways, talking and basking in the afternoon sun; everyone’s home flows into the streets. The daily domino game is setup on the sidewalk; four men play and another six or seven watch, cajole and jive. The vocal and rhythmic players will last into the evening, ending under the green glow of the florescent streetlights. Red uniformed government mosquito exterminators move through the streets and homes, spraying thick clouds of insecticide. Schoolgirls in red uniforms with blue scarves return from school to join the activities with a game of hopscotch and boys play stickball in the streets, using broomstick bats and anything they can fashion into a ball. Freshly washed clothes unfurl like flags from the balconies. The sound of music, children playing and people yelling on the balconies resonates in the streets. There is movement and poetry in the streets of Havana and my photographs document this energy and life.
~Denis Defibaugh
Denis Defibaugh is an associate professor and academic chair of the advertising photography program, Rochester Institute of Technology. He teaches editorial, still life, landscape, and advertising photography; and leads RIT courses to Cuba and New York City. He has presented workshops for Yellowstone National Park, Zion National Park, Florida A&M, SPEOS in Paris, and coordinates workshops in Oaxaca, Mexico; Surabaya, Indonesia; and Seoul, Korea. Denis was studio manager for the nationally recognized advertising photographer Tim Olive and became the head photographer for the Image Group in Atlanta, Georgia. He has produced images for clients such as UNICEF, the National Park Service, Coca-Cola, Polaroid, Delta Airlines, MacGregor, Taylor Wines, Eastman Kodak and American Express.
He has participation in numerous exhibitions and his photographs earned a Fulbright Travel/Study Grant to Mexico in 1993. His recent portfolio Family Ties do not Die, the Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico was exhibited in three venues in Texas and numerous shows in San Francisco, Miami, Rochester, and Buffalo. He is currently working on his Capturing Cuba series and on Constructed Landscapes in the several United States National Parks.