The black and white idea

For days I’ve had an idea in mind: to visit a place, take some photos there, and later turn them into black and white. Its industrial look makes it especially suitable for that kind of editing.

Yesterday I finally plucked up the courage to go there… alone. I had passed by the place, but never taken photos, as the opportunity hadn’t arisen. But now that I have my own transport, I told myself: let’s get on with it! And without further delay, I set out to make the idea a reality.

However… along the way I found distractions. This photo of the tower, shown like this, leaning could suggest that my idea—yes, the very idea itself—was wobbling at that point. And indeed, other ideas found their way into reality… yes. Naturally, when I captured this image I had no inkling of all that was to unfold later. In Palatino, a neighbourhood in Havana, the plans began to change without me hardly noticing.

I never reached the place I was heading for, but I went to others, and these photos, accompanied by a brief note, could also be presented in black and white for the #Monomad Challenge. What do you think?

All schools have a bust of José Martí. Almost always they are outside in the gardens, near the flagpole. But this one caught my attention…

Two shots showing my fight to fit the royal palm into the closed gate in the arch.

It all came from a detour by a school. The façade said Colegio Palatino, but after the Revolution it got a new name as a state school. Before, it was part of the free La Salle religious colleges in Havana.

With a small baseball field at the back… why on earth can’t they keep these things properly arranged, maintained, instead of leaving them to rot like this!

Sad to see how beautiful that building is, and yet they let it fall into ruin…

Later, as I was cycling along Santa Catalina Street, I had to stop again to photograph another temple.

San Juan Bosco Church, evidence of the Salesian presence in the Havana neighbourhood of La Víbora.

But the most striking moment was discovering, on a hill, the Parish of the Good Shepherd of Jesús del Monte, probably the oldest one built in Havana.

The parish archive holds the oldest official document of the locality: the marriage certificate of a couple of Canarian origin, signed by Bishop Diego Evelino de Compostela on 3 November 1689. The hermitage was built of mud and palm‑thatch, with the city’s first open‑air cemetery of rank, on the lands of the demolished San Francisco de Paula sugar mill—also known as Jesús del Monte—at the initiative of the same Bishop, in order to bring the services of the Church closer to the rural areas. _SOURCE

This church was devastated in just sixteen minutes by the tornado that swept through the area on the night of 27 January 2019. In 2025 it underwent a major restoration.

It looked beautiful… and as I climbed that hill, I gazed at the city and told myself: look at all that you still have to pedal before reaching the Capitol.