I once had the opportunity to go up to the roof of the Church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, located in a rather busy area of our Havana geography, Infanta and Neptuno Streets, in the Centro Habana Municipality.
The temple, which also serves as a convent, was built in the early 20th century by the religious order of the Discalced Carmelite Fathers, and inaugurated -I believe- around 1927.
Is an architectural jewel that has been preserved over time, thanks to its solidity, and I imagine that it has also been partially restored at some point, but the truth is that I have no news about this particular case.
But, what I am about to tell you is what I felt and thought during that opportunity that any photographer would like to have, because it is always pleasant to be on the heights, from where it is possible to concentrate on detail as well as on the general panorama and then begin to tell a story.
What did I see?
Well, the first thing I could feel was infinite peace. I had left behind the bustle of the city, the soot coming off the exhaust pipes of old cars, the coming and going of people, always involved in some problem or issue to solve, and I would only concentrate on climbing a few steps, to get away from the mundane noise and look at my city, calmly.
Even though I saw this image earlier, when I was on my way to the place, I didn't bother to take out my camera to take even a single picture. In my mind I had drawn the scene of the encounter with this woman and her son, I wanted to meet her gaze, with the love that exudes the same for believers as for those who, like me, understand faith differently.
Then, once there, I took a deep breath. I was happy with the blue, clean, healthy sky, and I thought that Havana was blessed by that energy, even though things were perceived with a different hue below.
I observed when the bird arrived and he perched on her crown, so I did not hesitate to take the first photo.
Photographers are strange beings, they can get into your thoughts and confuse you. Let's start with the fact that today I may not let you determine if I took this photo on the roof or after I had that mystical encounter from the heights of my city.
She was looking one way, the bird another and you see the baby was also free to choose where he would rest his gaze.
At this point, the photographer (me) also decided to capture a moment that would be for her alone, and the landscape had a lot to show.
So, how do we feel the photo?
The good news is that this is different for each of us and depends on the mood in which we were immersed at the moment we decided to shoot.
You can feel that maybe I was calm, but how many stories were happening at that moment behind the walls, on the rooftops, on the street that someone decided to cross, while others were stranded on some shore... or how many things could be happening inside me, which was apparently calm.
Was I aware of that at the time? Maybe, yes, but I may also have forgotten it for a moment and was just concentrating on technique, on the best focal length to use for the landscape or on carefully selecting the area where my camera could balance the light, according to my purpose.
However, I do a lot of thinking when I shoot. I think about how beautiful my city is, despite the rubble, the idleness of the people or the impossibility of making it a better place due to purely economic or even social factors. And I also think that I would like to travel a lot to get to know every piece of world that I see through other people's images.
I wonder what it would be like to feel all those images in my own skin.
I'm going to the details. As in life, one must be attentive to details.
It happens to me with photography and also with people. A detail is capable of revealing the nature of everything, of everything you feel, but beyond that, it is even possible to intuit what will come next.
Why do we sometimes feel that everything is falling on us? Are we correctly positioned to weigh the situation? Are we aware of the role we are destined to play while we are passing through this world?
If you can notice it, it's just a matter of perspective.
I talk to myself about the process of feeling the image, as well as the fact of feeling myself within it, because I am an important part of this landscape in which I breathe, and it is truly something that should not be forgotten.
Angels who listen - are they with us, perhaps? Everything could be connected with the immensity of that blue.
But life sometimes becomes tangled and the things you want to touch become distant, even painful.
Just come one step closer... Oh, where did I hear this?
... not even know.
But this image is less intricate to me.
What do you feel? Have you ever thought about what you want to think and not what I'm making you think? Do you think it's all bullshit? Maybe this photographer has a screw loose and wants you to see things that don't really exist, or at best she wants you to get inside her head.
How do you get all the lines straight? Have you ever thought about how stressful this can be for a photographer?
However, we can always look at the lines on our hands... or the moon, and maybe the obsession will go away, at least for a moment.
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