Through the lens of Havana

It started in 2017 with one person, one borrowed camera, and a stubborn idea: that the best pictures of Havana would come from someone who actually lived in Havana. Manuel was a film student then, deep in a thesis with graduation bearing down on him, and the photo tours were only ever meant to be a side thing — a way of showing visiting friends the courtyards behind the courtyards.

The timing turned out to be everything. Those were the years of the biggest influx of travelers Havana had ever seen — the cruise ships were docking again, the city was suddenly full of people who wanted to remember it well — and the requests piled up faster than one person could ever shoot them. Meeting that many people that quickly was on nobody's bingo card. It just happened.

So Manuel started calling friends. Not without hesitation — and the hesitation was never really about the photographs. It was everything around them: reading what a traveler actually wanted, talking with them in their own language, knowing which corner of Cuban culture would land hardest, making people feel at ease enough to forget the camera. He wasn't sure anyone else could carry all of that at once. The friends proved him wrong, gently and completely. Nine years and a few thousand sessions later, that doubt is the studio's favorite joke on itself. Today it's a team of five, all from these streets, still showing up early for the morning light off the Malecón — and a long list of travelers who came as guests and left as the kind of friends who send postcards.

— What we've learned, in nine years

The first thing we learned is that good pictures come from time, not equipment. A patient hour with a $300 lens beats a hurried five minutes with a $3,000 one, every time. The second is that the pictures travelers love most are almost never the ones we set up — they're the ones we caught between setups, when somebody laughed or got distracted or was looking at a wall the wrong way.

The third thing — and this is the one we say to every new photographer who joins the studio — is that the work is mostly listening. Listening to the city, listening to the traveler, listening to the room. Press the shutter only when the city is talking.

“Press the shutter only when the city is talking.”

— What hasn't changed

Nine years on, the studio still operates the way Manuel set it up: small, local, slow. We don't have an office, we don't run ads, we don't sell up. Every session is photographed by one of the five of us, on foot, in the neighborhoods we know best.

— And what's next

More of the same, mostly. Three more photographers we're slowly mentoring. A film project we've been dreaming about for two years. A side trip we'd like to start running to Trinidad. A blog we're finally writing — this one, the one you're reading now.

We're not in a hurry. The city isn't, either. Press the shutter only when it's talking. That's the whole craft, really.