What can photography really achieve?
In the year 2012, I photographed some young people in Havana, placing them in the streets at night or in studios with colored backdrops. We were both inquisitive of the other, wondering what exactly we were doing together. Were they acting in front of my camera? Or was I directing them to achieve the image that I wanted? A camera can serve a documentary purpose but it can also embellish and create. It is not my place to judge which is its most fundamental purpose. Perhaps ultimately, all the images in this series can only represent what Cuba is like in my mind. Yet even if it is completely disconnected from ‘reality’, I used my camera to achieve, or to testify to the ‘reality’ I envisioned. Maybe this is where my real enjoyment as a photographer lies.
I called this series La Habana in Waiting. It was about a kind of result - a result that all my subjects and I were waiting for - a result which is achieved through a camera lens and is called ‘photography’.