An island of nostalgic color

CUBA By David Alan Harvey National Geographic Society

All politics aside - as if this were possible - Cuba is a visual paradise. A photographer in Cuba can be over-stimulated by the light, the colors, the scenery, the people, and the history of the place. Cuba is a visual playground, where everything is stamped on the surface by the passing of time. Buildings shed their skin, cars hold on to the romance of a more heroic era, and people welcome strangers with pride.

David Alan Harvey's "Cuba" celebrates all of that. As we enter the book, we see a girl walking with an umbrella not only matching her dress, but also the color of the colonial architecture. This is a hint of what is to come: an array of well-choreographed photographs that pin everyday Cubans against their environment, creating a stage-like composition. The anti-Castro tint of the writing and the dignifying photographic tableaus create an almost nave experience of the most complex social situation on the continent.

*Alfredo Sosa is the Monitor's editor of feature photography.

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society