A wedding picture must resemble the bride and groom. Capturing what they feel, the atmosphere of the bridal veil, the sensuality, the spell of the moment. The unique look of the couple during the “yes, I do” must be immortalized thanks to the magic of photography.
In Cuba, after the triumph of the Revolution, fashion and publicity photos started disappearing. The great artists of the lens registered the urban landscape and the revolutionary epic. While Korda dressed his muse Norka in the uniform of the militias, young people emerged as photographers, formed in an aesthetics alien to the glamour and sophistication, qualities considered then as bourgeois declinations from the past.
The wedding pictures lacked an artistic intention. Only the ceremony was testified: guests, the cake and sparkling wine. In recent times, with the advent of private work, some entrepreneurs have assumed the planning of festivities and among their multiple products and services they offer photos. Aire de fiesta and Devento are the leaders of this market in Cuba. Several photographers have been demonstrating that they can leave aside the clichés and achieve photos in which they combine the demands of the clients with professional quality details.
People’s mentality has started changing. There are many persons who choose the island as the scenario for the most important events of their lives, Cubans who live in Cuba or abroad as well as foreigners.
Desirée Barredo, behind the Devento’s lens, defends the natural photography, without over-elaborate poses, where the bride and groom express feelings reflected in the photos. “Havana is a wonderful scenario. To the extent that I enter its streets I can’t stop taking pictures. The facades of the buildings, the vintage cars in the streets or the architecture of the 1950s, contrast with the two lovers, especially with the wedding dress,” says the young photographer.
We still don’t completely decipher the enigma. Despite that in Cuba competitive prices are offered, it is important to see how there are increasingly more couples who choose the island as scenario for their wedding ceremonies, the renewal of vows and photographic tours through the old streets and the wall where everything ends and the sea commences.
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The creativity and imagination that the photographers have been developing to escape the trite paths and develop, based on Cubanness, a contemporary and artistic photo attracts a great many people. “The truth is that beyond beach and sun, Cuba and its capital captivate, enamor and inspire. Leaving behind the classic convertible that couldn’t be lacking in any album, of Cubans as well as of foreigners, the photograph of the wedding and couples in Cuba has shed its skin to the point of emulating with international standards,” said to OnCuba Izuky Pérez, who in recent times has been working as a Cuban wedding photographer with great international projection. His prize-winning works are proof of the symbiosis between modernity and tradition that foreign couples request so much for their destination weddings, in tourist couples as well as in others less conventional.
In my opinion, whoever carries the camera must understand that couple’s love in order to capture it from the vision of an accomplice, in addition to capturing the essential moments of the event to register them for eternity.
