Havana, Cuba and the poetry: a photographic journey
On Cuba and Havana have been published hundreds, perhaps thousands of photographic books. The epic of the Revolution, with the murals of Fidel and the portraits of Che taken by Alberto Korda. Women of the Revolution beautiful and sunny with their penetrating and intriguing gaze. The mojitos at Bodeguita del Medio, and the colors of the Sierra de la Revolution, the colonial architecture of the Revolution, from Santa Clara to Trinidad, and harvesting of sugar cane of the Revolution which, in the transfiguration of images to be in use by us westerners, it becomes almost a festive Sunday picnic.
In the images of Luciano del Castillo this Cuba does not exist. Simply because Luciano has decided to let slide free the flow of his creativity and his emotions, without preconceived thesis and full intellectual freedom. He would not send the evidence, rather than the tracks from which to draw motives of deep reflections. […]
Yet, in Poesia Escondida there are, as in Palermo of Luciano’s early years, joy, fun, hope in the future. His photographs convey all these feelings, page after page, without a breath, giving a representation of Havana and the Cuban people, engaging, sincere and dreamy at the same time, as only a certain poetry can do.
from introduction by Mauro Vallinotto
2017 Book selected for the Photo Book Exhibition, Hyderabad 21 Sept – 8 Oct 2017
Awarded to: Luciano del Castillo
Book: Poesia Escondida, La Habana, Cuba
2016 SILVER WINNER, Second Prize
Awarded to: Luciano del Castillo
Book: Poesia Escondida, La Habana, Cuba