Vintage Car -  Vintage American cars are a dime a dozen in Cuba.  Every street corner bustles with the likes of Fords and Chevy’s that have been a part of the islands mystique dating back to its pre-Revolutionary era.

Congo Drum -  The music in Cuba is inspiring.  Everywhere you go the richness of the music serenades your ears and caresses your soul.  This photo, even in its simpleness, reflects that richness as well as the vibrancy of colors and textures that is also associated with this enchanting island.

Viva Cuba Beisbol -  Baseball is Cuba’s national pastime.  Kids play with everything from bottle caps and fruit as baseballs to cardboard boxes as gloves and broom handles and tree limbs as bats.  Not even the lack of material goods can stop them from playing the game they love!  Viva Cuba Beisbol!

View more photos of Cuba by visiting Byron’s photo gallery at: www.byronmotley.com and his blog vivacubabeisbol.blogspot.com.

And that would be me. I am thrilled (beyond words) to be working with the Cuban Ministry of Culture on a photographic exhibit of my photos on Cuban baseball next spring (2009) in Havana. See the letter below (from the Cuban Ministry of Culture) making it official.

Through San Francisco based attorney Bill Martinez (filmmaker Michael Moore’s attorney on the film “Sicko”), I was able to make this great contact.

The Ministry of Culture works with artists from all over the world and I am very excited about our association. I am the only photographer they have chosen to represent.

I am also proud that my work as a photojournalist of Cuban culture is not a political statement nor does it have any type of political slant, but it serves as a bridge between the artistic communities of the United States and Cuba.

Politics are left to the politicians, expressions of life, art and love are the responsibility to be explored and expressed by artists of every genre.

It’s an honor to have my work appreciated by the artist communities of the world.

Byron Motley

This photograph was made while intentionally photographing on the street in an area of Nashville, TN that a lot of tourists visit.

I was using a small camera set up to make the exposure very quickly, with almost no delay after pressing the shutter. I was practicing working very intuitively, often raising the camera and making an exposure without checking the composition of the picture. This is a style of photography practiced by many “street shooters” and the likes of Garry Winogrand.

For me, street photography is a sideline, but an enjoyable one especially when several elements come together as they did in this photograph.

I like the whirl of action, the near eye-contact that the male veteran has with the camera, the stories suggested by the face of the woman with the sunglasses (actually every face in the picture suggests stories to me), and the suspended shock of curly hair drawn to the center of the frame, and the downcast eyes of the woman in the short pants.

All together, they suggest (to me) that this picture has a center.

P.M.




I made this photograph while walking down the street in my neighborhood, in the window of a store that sells all kinds of wild and crazy posters, lamps, and other knick knacks.

I was interested by the layers in this picture, how the more ethereal layer of the poster with its images of the women underlies the reflection of the physical world of the street.

It makes me think of Ezekiel’s wheels from ancient Hebrew writings, where two circles (representing two worlds) rotate on a single axis. This is how I see the intersection of the physical and non-physical realities of my life.

What do you think?

I’ll share another photograph here next week.

P.M.

PhilipMorgan.net.

It seems that photographers cannot resist photographing the Veratrum Californicum or the corn lily. As we were relaxing by Mirror Lake in Oregon, I turned to my girlfriend Cheryl and snarkily said, “Look, there’s the most cliche photograph in the book right there. A corn lily!” The next day, I was helplessly drawn to a field with several corn lily plants, snapping away at the spiraling, sensuous shapes in my viewfinder. I had fallen spell to the corn lily and was wasting no time making as many exposures as I could of this beautiful plant. While I’m not sure I can improve upon the numerous beautiful photographs that have already been made of the corn lily, I’ll think twice next time before I denounce cliche subject matter so quickly!