Have finally edited and watermarked my Havana pics. Thanks to some geeks at the forum at dpreview.com, I discovered that my trusty Fuji fd40 had some manual settings which meant I could take decent pictures in darker circumstances than on the settings I was using previously. So, there are lots of pics this year, divided into two sets of about 70 photos each. You can view them right here, or head on over to flickr to see them as a fullscreen, or check out the photostream.
If anyone wants to use a non-watermarked pic, just email me.
I know I have always whinged about the cintura competitions on past trips to Havana, but this year, I found them to be, almost without exception, thoroughly entertaining. Maybe it's because the competition factor is less present - which means it's less likely to be a race to the sluttiest, and more likely to be a bunch of women laughing and having a good time. Whatever the reason, the ambience was much more lighthearted than in previous years, and yielded some fun photos. First up, in the slideshow below, are some ladies enjoying themselves with Yuri and Combinacion de la Habana, then it's carnaval in BahÃa Onda with Maraca, and a couple in Trinidad with Reve. Spot the tranny.Click here to see it on a full screen at flickr.
I didn't film this in Havana because it's my favourite Salsa Mayor song at the moment, and selfishly, I chose to enjoy myself instead of standing still holding my camera up until my shoulder seized. In any case Pascualito from France, who has a much more professional set-up, has done a much better job - looks like he used two cameras and the sound is great. He seems to have captured all of Salsa Mayor's recent concert at New Morning in Paris, and videos a lot of the bands that go through there -if you like timba, you should be subscribing to hisyoutube channel.
I've got most of the work I had to do in my free time done. That included an interview with Yeny and Samuell for the concert this Sunday in Sydney -the story is here if you missed the links on Twitter, Facebook and at timba.com. I also had to write up a story with Grant Bowler, an Aussie actor appearing in the third season of True Blood (that's out on Monday). Now I can get back to uploading stuff from Havana. I have probably already uploaded the best of my Havana videos but I haven't even started on the photos and I got some beauties this year, so that's next.
For Sydney peeps, the next Cuban night is Friday August 24. I'll remind you closer to the date, and being seeing most of you on Sunday at the Opera House for Van Van.
