Havana. From the book Violet Isle: A Duet of Photographs from Cuba (with Alex Webb). 2007.
“Over the years, I’ve learned to trust images I’m drawn to in the world. In times of uncertainty
and u
(...) nsettling emotions, these resonant images seem like advance dispatches from the interior of
the self. They know before I know.
The day I made this photograph, I was heavyhearted. My beloved father-in-law was dying, and I
wanted to be at his bedside. Unable to fly home for a day, I reluctantly decided to photograph.
Half in a daze, I remember climbing a flight of rickety stairs to a Havana rooftop. A young man
greeted me, a pigeon fancier in his late twenties. ‘I almost died,’ he softly confided to me, ‘and
my birds brought me back to life.’ Kneeling on the coop’s floor, I noticed a pigeon opening its
wings. I lifted the camera to my eye.”
- Rebecca Norris Webb
Copyright © Rebecca Norris Webb
