During a ten minutes ride back home from a walk in a trail, my fifteen year old daughter was busy taking notes in her notebook. By the time we arrived home she handed me this poem that she wrote about me:
Come do the eagles when you say their names
that’s what my father did
as he crossed the track of the train
said he wanted to caress the rocks
that held up the mountain
water running down the hills
with the trees as locks
beautiful fountain
a click for everywhere he goes
capturing the moment
the river and brick beach
maybe not like in Jersey
maybe not like the ocean
but our place definitely.
I grew up in Havana, Cuba, where I studied drawing and painting at the National Academy of Art “San Alejandro”. In 1997 I arrived in the United States to present two of my multimedia performance pieces at Rice University in Houston, TX, and in 2000 I arrived in New York City where I continued doing my artwork while making a living working in the fine art industry. This led me to the Registrar Office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I handled, received, released and photographed incoming and outgoing art pieces. After four years in this position I switched professional careers and I began to work as a scenic artist for Theatre, Film and TV. And in 2016, I became a member of the Local USA 829 (United Scenic Artist). Around that same year I purchased my first semi-professional camera (at least the first one since the 1980’s). But it wasn’t until 2019 that I started to capture images I thought worth keeping.
Although I like to photograph all kinds of different subjects, my main interest is in creative portraits, where the subject, the environment (set) and the lighting give artistic dimension to the final image.
I'm based in a little town named Beacon, some sixty miles north of New York City, in a geographical area known as the Hudson Valley.