Cuba Travels

Havana Old Town ©Richard Crawford

Arrived back in the UK on the last day of the year 2014 after spending the previous 2 weeks traveling through Cuba. I made the decision (brave/stupid?) to leave the larger film kit and photography kit at home and take instead just a small rangefinder stills camera and two lenses. Despite the odd thought of ‘oh I could really do with a 400mm lens now’ there wasn’t much that couldn’t be captured and it was liberating to have low weight on the shoulders in the 29C heat and on 10km hikes down to the waterfalls near Trinidad.

©Richard Crawford

Music is everywhere – with a too strong dependence on Bueno Vista Social Club music to win the tourist dollar. ©Richard Crawford

The lovely thing with the Rangefinder (Fuji X-Pro1) is that you can shoot RAW but still display the photos with presets to visualise the look like these next two composed with B&W in mind

©Richard Crawford

But using Lightroom lets me play with film looks which mimic old Filmstock like Fuji Velvia and Kodachrome 25 ….. I miss those looks but love the versatility of digital to replicate it 95% of the time …. and no scratches.