FOTOGRAFIAR ESPACIOS EN DETERIORO

PHOTOGRAPH SPACES IN DETERIORATION Post-photographic images of Old Havana

Abstract

In Old Havana, the remastering of the urban past conditions the present time. As a tourist spotlight, Havana city, Cuba, has been the target of cameras on countless occasions. On Instagram, a social network based on the idea of sharing digital images, you can find a ludicrous number of pictures of Havana's old town. These pictures, or post-photography’s take us back to another time, portraying worn down buildings and places and iconic symbols as the "almendrones", classic cars from the 50s and 60s, and "guaguas", vehicles for local transportation. In this article, a series of Instagram post-photographic images of Havana's old town are analysed. The visual analysis is structured in the following sections: 1) Taking photographs of current day Havana 2) Worn out aesthetics 3) Among “almendrones” and “guaguas”. The complex relationship between imagery and technology, reframe, and add complexity to discussions on the representations of historical urban centre’s. Past and present coexist in the production of post-photographic images. On one side, some features of urban ruins are exaggerated to focus on worn out materiality, on the other, these same traits are digitally edited on visual journeys of this virtual space. The "vintage" and "ruined" exerts an attraction that drives the production of discordant aesthetics and discourses in deteriorated urban landscapes.