A father dotes on his baby daughter in the northern coastal town of Gibarra. The dad had been a physician and served for three years in Venezuela, earning a livable monthly wage. He quit practicing in Cuba because he couldn't afford to live on the $20 or $25 monthly salary. He drove a taxi for a while, but when tourists stopped coming due to Trump's travel restrictions and then Covid, he sold his car, and uses the proceeds to help make daily ends meet. He says most of his friends have fled to the U.S. due to the dire living conditions. He and his wife have stayed because the journey through Central America would be too dangerous for their baby daughter. (January, 2023)

Farmer Camillo and his wife Ana relax on a Sunday morning in the lush mountains outside Baracoa, Cuba with a fresh harvest of Cuba’s nutritious national fruit, mamey sapote. Camillo had an improvised splint on his right wrist following a scary, 20 foot fall while climbing to reach the fruit. He landed on soft ground, still fracturing his wrist. If he landed differently, the outcome could have been far worse. Mamey has a creamy avocado-like texture, is sweet, and is often used in deserts. It has many vitamins and is credited with improving digestion, skin, heart health ,and the immune system. (March, 2022)

"Fly Away With Me" This family's cabin is tucked into a beautiful valley In the Topes de Collantes mountains in central Cuba, down a steep footpath from the main road. They care for an extensive vegetable garden tucked back in the hills. In a country with high inflation and strict food rations, they seemed to have a little paradise, and were proud of their ability to subsist off the land...sometimes selling their crops locally. They told me that when it rains, their roof keeps their two-bedroom cabin dry. Near the end of the visit, the boy began playing with the turkey in the yard.

A vegetable farmer watering his tomato patch outside Baracoa, Cuba The farmers say they purchased the land from the government during Covid and they sell their lettuce and tomatoes privately at farm stands. Apparently, the government has been encouraging more small farming in response to the country’s severe food shortage. It’s rare to find fresh produce in Baracoa, even in restaurants that cater to tourists.

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I came upon this proud compesino in February 2017 while walking along a river bed in the small town of Santo Domingo, beneath the towering Sierra Maestra mountains in eastern Cuba. He was feding his farm animals near dusk. Later, that evening, our guest house owner told me the man in my camera was Lucas Castillo III, 82, grandson of Lucas Castillo, a comrade who helped Fidel Castro arm for his revolution. Lucas transported arms and supplies by mule to Fidel Castro's mountain hideout near here. He and his son Lucas II were captured by then dictator Fulgencio Batista's forces, and were tortured mercilessly in a public square before their public hanging.

A Cuban farmer shouldering a burlap bag of yucca for planting.

A farmer plants yucca in western Cuba.

Farmer Tilling With Oxen (Topes de Collantes, 2019)

Woman With Machete And Firewood (Topes de Collantes, 2019)

On a hot, Caribbean morning, Rafael Torres, a 70-year old farmer, was hauling a long trunk of bamboo out of the forested mountains down a path the river bank. We got to talking a he invited me to visit the next day. “I rest all day Saturday, come any time,“ he said. 
 The visit became an opportunity to meet three generations of his family -- including his wife, Carmen, who lost her vision, and was sewing a cloth by touch, and his granddaughter, Anjelica (next photo), Rafael built his wood hut with metal roof a decade ago. He says it stays dry in the rainy season, but he wishes he could cover the dirt floor with concrete. If the setting above the river is a paradise to an outsider, at the base of Cuba’s beautiful mountain national park, El Junque, people here say their lives are hard (“vida duro”). Even so, my hosts were eager to offer their guest a plastic bag with guanaba fruit and beans harvested from their yard. I gently handed it back. "The special gift for me was visiting them, and being able to experience their lives, " I explained. (March, 2022, near Baracoa, Cuba)

A tobacco farmer grinds freshly roasted coffee beans.

A tobacco farmer and his wife in the Valle de Viñales, Cuba. We had met a year earlier when I rented a local bike to explore the back roads. I returned two years later with my daughter and cycled the same roads, hoping to give prints to the farmers I met on the earlier visit. The good feeling when we reconnected opened up relaxed moments for more intimate portraits. (December 2017)

Tobaccos Farmers With Cigars (Vinales, 1979)

Mom Carrying Daughter To School (Baracoa, 2022)

River Wash (Baracoa, 2022)

Shore With Boats (Gibara, 2023)

Shriimp Fisherman Throwing Net (Gibara, 2023)

On many mornings, when the sun is rising along La Almeda Park at the port in Santiago, Cuba, you might encounter Gabriel Samatiel, 41, facing the deep blue sea and distant mountains, playing his trumpet. If you walk further to a shaded section of benches, the serenade comes from saxophonist Atitica Guaname, 74. “Can you play me a classic song?” I asked each one, with my phone ready to video. Both eagerly performed, Gabriel with music he wrote. The port was eerily quiet with no ship traffic, due to the onerous U.S. trade embargo that is preventing even food and medicine imports. (Photo: March 2022)

Painter Roel Caboverde, 74, at his home near the main square in Baracoa, Cuba, When tourism in town dried up due to the double punch of Trump’s sanctions and Covid shutdowns, his livelihood selling paintings came to an abrupt halt. When I purchased a 3o;x40” canvas at his asking price of $100, it was his first sale in two years. And with the U.S. trade embargo, it’s been impossible to buy paint. He showed me paint tubes at his easel that were drained flat of their paint. Caboverde, 71, purchased his spacious home in the heart of Baracoa with the sale of $12,000 of paintings abroad twenty years ago. His paintings with eroticism and humor of Baracoa scenes have been exhibited in the United States, across Europe, Japan, Dominican Republic, and Costa . Taped above his easel this quote: “Sin honor, no hay hombre. Cada cual vida de su sudor o no viva” My rough translation: Without honor there is no man. Each life must have sweat to feel alive.

When locals in the coastal town of Gibara, Cuba need a master bike mechanic, they head to Nino's non-descript shack just outside of town. Word is he can fix anything.

An afternoon workout in the open air gym near the main square in Baracoa, Cuba. A coach stood nearby, helping the girl with her form during her reps.

On a vacant lot by the sea, Cuban boys play stickball -- surely with big league dreams! (Gibarrra, February 2017)

Havana Boxer

Morning Bustle - Butcher With Beef, Father Transporting Daughter

Milk Delivery (Trinidad, 2019)

Peddle Taxi Driver With Morning Coffee (Baracoa, 2022)

Bus Ride With Baby (Gibara, 2017)

Camillo and his family at his father's farm house in the mountains outside Baracoa, Cuba. During the weekend, he told me they felt strangled by life in Cuba, unable to feed his kids, get meciine when they were sick, or find work for his bike rental business since tourism from the U.S. was stopped. After careful planning, he sold his house, his ten rental bikes, all the family possessions and fled for the U.S. They flew to Nicaragua, paying exhorbitant prices for the flight, then hired a coyote to guide them on the harrowing one month journey through Central America to the border at El Paso, Texas. After a few ays of detention, they were released because they are Cuban refugees. Now, one year after this photo on the farm, the family is struggling to make a new life in Orlanda, Florida. The are a hard working, caring, loving family struggling with a new country, culture, language and the indignities that new immigrants endure in the work force and community. Still, they say, they are happy to be here and have opportunities they'd never have in Cuba to build new lives and a future for their children.

Aristide At His Vegetarian Restaurant (Baracoa, 2022)