Well, it really has been a while! I hope you are all doing well. I'm unable to access dA and the web in general because I'm currently between jobs, and I don't have Internet access at home. I do hope this absence to be temporal, because I really miss you guys, The Yard, and the whole dA community. This is a place I really love and care, a place where a have met many wonderful persons and learned a lot about photography. Let see how things turns out.

Well, I have been busy all this time. I did a post for the Seven Clicks project blog; seven photos, each for every day of the week showcasing the everyday life on Havana's streets. Thanks a lot to the wonderful Michelle to giving me the chance to participate in such an inspiring project. Keep up the fantastic work!

On August I had the chance to work as a fixer for a very talented photographer from Benetton's COLOR magazine. She came to do a photo story about dancing in Cuba, and I helped her to find some locations and even manage to score a meeting with a notorious dance company for her story. The experience from that job was inestimable, being able to see how a professional works is priceless, and I surely learned many useful things.

I also had some time to post two entries on my street photography blog with some shots from approximately two years ago, when I was still using my Zenit 12. Too bad it started scratching some frames from time to time, and I haven't got the time and money to take it to repair. I do miss using it, especially when I'm in rough situations where using my S2 would be a sin due the danger of damaging it. I started using my Zenit 11, but it can't compete with the 12's sleeker, more robust body. Plus, the Zenit 12 has a modest and fairly accurate TTL lightmeter, instead of the 11 with its clumsy and unreliable selenium one. Not to talk about how that dreadful selenium cell ruins the camera's style.

Luckily for me a friend lend me his Minolta Maxxum 450si for some time, and let me tell you it's a delightful machine to use. The autofocus is reasonably fast to a film camera form the nineties, the 28-80 zoom that came with it is a modest performer, but it's pitifully slow starting at f4 and being f5.6 at its longest length. Besides of the lens and some focus hunting in low light, it has been a pleasant shooter to work with. Metering is accurate, almost no shutter lag, and a big nice viewfinder. Using my other friend's Rebel now feels like looking through a telescope. I wonder why digital SLRs makers have doomed us with tiny viewfinders on the entry and some midrange models. That's why I love rangefinder's big and bright viewfinders. You can't beat their big bright viewfinder; even the modest of Bessas has one! Maybe it's some kind of conspiracy going on?! Read the link's article, it's worth the time.

Now with some available time I started to work on a project about the Cuban people's religious devotion to syncretism religions, how it has survived, and taken strength on this last years. I'm investigating at the moment the many religious celebrations and ceremonies that comprehend our rich religious legacy from the many cultures that conforms our national identity. I know it's a very ambitious and wide project, so I'm currently focusing on a few celebrations, and hopefully will manage to come across an interesting subject(s) to document their religion practices closely and more comprehensively.

Well, I hope to be able to hang around in the future as I much as I can. Take good care all of you. And in the mean time, shoot shoot shoot!

Cheers!