Ernesto Bazan’s
images of the Cuban countryside suffused with tenderness, color and mystery.
Photographer created unique works that almost allow the viewer to smell Cuban cigars
in the air, to feel raw Cuban life, vibes and traditions. Bazan experimented a
lot with under exposed and saturated colors in composition to create mysterious
and even dramatic surroundings.
First image consciously
was taken in the lack of light dark room. All what is exposed is small TV in front,
antenna and yellowish piece of cloth over the table with TV. It is all what we
can really know about house, photographer leaves us in the dark room
emphasizing on the environment outside. It
is vibrant green slums. Bazan contrasts Cuban realities which are taken some time
in the 21th century, however, with not much of civilization presented.
Second image
was taken from low angle with shallow depth of field and apparently wide
aperture. Focus in on man’s face lit by Sun and his smoking cigar. Again, image
is seemed to be under exposed. This dramatic light on his face makes him stand
out. There are some people on the back which are staying out of focus and
firstly seem to be not important. But their position is upper then position of
the main character so it makes us think that they may have some control over
this person.
Third image is
still life composition. Vibrant yellow, blue, reddish-pink colors bring importance
of primary colors into the picture. Especially pink adds tenderness into the
composition. Horizontal lines of radio elements and table itself underlined by radio cord that goes up and down and finally become continuous wavy line with folder
of the table cloth. Cord is extremely essential element in here: it brings
movement to the static state.
I have been inspired
by Ernesto Bazan’s series of Cuban works “Al Campo”. Many of his works transmit
dramatic sense from ordinary Cuban life. Sometimes, it looks that images could
be well exposed in reason to show a viewer more details about every scene. But
I think that Bazan willingly has created contrasts of highlights and
shadows in order to make those images appeared as a scenes from documentary
movie.
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