Photography holidays in Cuba

Where we photograph - click on a region

When you think of Cuba, the 1950s classic cars, Havana cigars, rum cocktails and revolutionary spirit come to mind.

With a legacy of beautiful Spanish colonial buildings, the indomitable spirit of Cuba libre is everywhere in the music, dancing, cocktails, warm welcome and cool Cadillacs.

Old Chevvies, Cadillacs and Buicks have somehow kept on running for 50 years or more – some are beat up and need cranking up at inopportune moments, others are all gleaming chrome and glamour, and either way they're a photo opportunity worth flying halfway round the world to snap against a background of crumbling plaster work, or a backdrop of breathtaking white sand and sparkling sea.

The 400 years of Cuba's Spanish colonial past is ever present in the cities, many of them made UNESCO World Heritage Sites to preserve the grand facades, now crumbling with age. Havana's grand squares and ocean boulevards, Renaissance style terracotta tiled domed architecture of Cienfuegos, known as Cuba's 'Pearl of the South', and the charm of Trinidad’s pretty coloured balconied houses.

What makes it a dream for photographers is that everywhere you look Cuban people have given the scene a more 'authentic' twist.

Washing hangs out to dry from the windows of Havana's handsome four-storey buildings, lovers add romance to sunset on El Malecon sea wall, and the pastel plaster work is artistically crumbling on Trinidad's sugar houses.

As if to add to the cool attitude, guys ride into town on horseback, a rum old lady is enjoying a Cuban cigar in a doorway, farmhands strum a guitar by the stables and the farmer's daughter may be buffing the chevvy's bumpers, as we pass through the farms.

Cuba's a fantastic photo opportunity, and you can be confident of experiencing an Authentic Adventure.