Friendly Friday: Meet … Los Cubanos

Sandy

Please join me in welcoming Sarah from Travel with Me, as our new co-host on the Friendly Friday team. Ever since she discovered it, Sarah’s been a regular participant in our weekly challenge. I always look forward to Sarah’s posts which never fail to take me away to new and exotic places.

Sarah is introducing a novel twist to Friendly Friday. While Amanda & I will continue to post different & arbitrary challenge topics, Sarah will focus on one topic: the people met during travels at home or abroad. I’m excited about this focus because I love reading posts about people.

For the next two weeks, Sarah will host the Friendly Friday Challenge to feature a person or persons met during travels.

Remember to include a link to Sarah’s post but please do follow-up with a comment on Sarah’s page. As you know … automatic pingbacks don’t always work. A comment guarantees notification to your host.

Here is my contribution to Sarah’s inaugural Friendly Friday Challenge: Meet … Los Cubanos.

In my previous post I shared pictures from a model shoot in Cuba and talked about creative choices made in post-processing. The photos were part of a collection for which I’ve been considering different presentation styles.

A few weeks back I found a Canva design template which inspired me to make a video slideshow. Little did I know that it would take me weeks to finalize the photos and layout, research Cuban poetry and choose appropriate music. I’ve completed a few videos this year and I’m always surprised at how long it takes. I’m hoping this process gets faster with more experience!

After several iterations, I now have a version ready to share. Although I’m happy with the visual content, I’m not so sure about the audio.

The clip is from a street band in Santiago de Cuba called Los Jubilados del Caribe or ‘The Pensioners of the Caribbean.’ Just their name alone makes me like them. Since my shoot location was in Santiago de Cuba, I thought the music choice right. However, I wonder if it adds or detracts from the overall content.

I’m interested to hear what you think. Certainly, if you have any suggestions on an alternate (copyright free) track, please let me know.

Cuba is in the news these days with island-wide protests on the scarcity of food and medicine amid the pandemic. Reading the news stories, I am reminded of the people I met during my visit there. The young men & women in this collection were particularly joyful and exuberant and it saddens me to think how they may have been affected in the last two years. This video is my homage to the people of Cuba. I wish them well.

20 Comments

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  3. What a shot of the three men together – great composition! And your video is fun. Being in the process of making a bunch of videos for a Spanish course I can tell how much work went into this – it does get faster but the thinking that still takes up a lot of time!

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      1. I am currently using Premiere Pro mainly because I have over 60 videos to do and it updates well – i.e. I can do a so-so job to make the deadline, and then improve on them when I have time. However, I will have to switch soon as the price of the Adobe Creative Suite subscription is out-of-line for a retiree, and the programs I have are not working that well on my eight-year-old Mac. I have tried to switch to iMovie (and then to Final Cut Pro if I like it), but it is so radically different than Premiere that it was taking way too long for each video. Plus, because they are in Spanish, there are all sorts of small mistakes, spelling and otherwise, and I am constantly having to update them. iMovie does not update instantly like Premiere – it seems to me that any change in graphics has to be re-inserted and the old one deleted. I have a friend who was also a graphic artist in her former life, and now does a ton of video and she loves iMovie – and also doing the animations in the related free program… So, I might check out Canva too

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        1. I have no experience with Premier Pro but I expect that it is way ahead of Canva in terms of functionality.

          For example, all Canva does for audio is allow you to slap on one track and either truncate it at the beginning or end. Anything more like using multi tracks, splicing, joining, recording or overlapping tracks, has to be done in another tool (I use Audacity) . I’m guessing that audio is important for you.
          I’ve always heard that iMovie is the best but not being a Mac user, I can’t say. However, I hear you on the Adobe subscription. They are not price friendly at all. .

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  4. Very professional contribution to Sarah’s inaugural post! You have conveyed the raw human beauty of the people and there are emotions in every photo. Perfect musical accompaniment adds to the appeal. You have a talent for this style of photography, Sandy. What do to do with your portrait collections. Do you sell them? You could exhibit them!

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    1. This is the first time that I’ve ever pulled together a portrait collection, so I am very flattered by your comments! I hadn’t given any thought to selling or exhibiting my pictures; I do it purely for my own pleasure. I do enjoy this style of photography though. Now that the restrictions are lifting, maybe I’ll get to do more going forward. Thank you for the compliments 🙂

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      1. Thank you Amanda ❤ I miss this space so much that I can't even begin to tell. But there is just a lot at the time being going on that is not letting me give my best here. We just bought a small place of our own and am also again trying to look for a job(I had stopped the process for a while) and so you can imagine that moving and trying to settle in our new place with two small kids in the middle of a pandemic is driving me crazy!!!! But I will be back 😀 AND, I MISS reading your posts a lot…they have always inspired me<3<3<3 Thanks for dropping a line…it means a lot!

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        1. It is fantastic to hear you have got a place of your own, Moon. To will be so busy for a time. But we will be here welcoming you back with open arms when things settle! You will have lots to write about. Take it easy and stay safe.

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    2. Welcome back Moon! Even if it’s for a short while, I’m glad you made time to drop by. Very exciting news on your end. I can just imagine how hectic life must be. Good luck to you! We (and our posts) will be here when you have a minute to spare.

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  7. Someone (Lisa on the beach) said recently that we need a ❤ button on WordPress and she’s so right – I would use it for this post for sure Sandy!! Your photos are stunning, really bringing out the beauty of these models and a perfect example of how powerful B&W photography can be. I love the style of the video too – you’ve really got the best out of that Canva template. I’m tempted to upgrade to Canva Pro so that I can experiment with similar effects – you’ve inspired me! I think the music works fine by the way, it speaks of Latin rhythms and sunshine!

    Thank you (and Amanda) for welcoming me to the FFC fold and for this wonderful first contribution to my new ‘Meet …’ theme series 😀

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    1. I’m glad you liked the video Sarah and if I inspired you to try doing the same, all the better!

      I don’t think you necessarily need Canva Pro to get started. I find the design templates that get me inspired but often, I don’t use them as given. All the same, it is convenient to access all the features in Pro and that’s nice.

      Glad to have you on board Sarah. As you know, this is a favorite topic of mine so I look forward to seeing future posts!

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