Traveling to Cuba and not being interested in the beach resorts for tourists but happy getting to know Cubans is an amazing opportunity to see, converse, and photograph with permission amazing people who are interested to get to know you and to show their personality and way of life. We enjoyed seeing so many people outside talking to each other, reading, playing chess and school children in their classrooms we could see and wave to through open windows. Talking to so many people we learned about a very good education system, highly educated and trained people but a limit of opportunity to make a higher than average income.
Learning about etiquette when photographing people at our Jay Maysel workshop week, asking permission to take a picture of people was a given. Striking up a conversation, even with limited knowledge of the language, showed respect for the person photographed and gave the photographer more meaning to the photo since the object was a person we got to know and will always remember when working on the image or enjoying photo. An extra act of kindness was to ask the people whether they like their picture and whether they would like to have a copy of it.