Barrington photographer has an eye for Cuba

Carl Keitner's works will be displayed at Imago next month

Posted 5/30/19

Carl Keitner is drawn to Cuba.

The Barrington resident and longtime photographer has been visiting the island nation for nearly two decades, and still cannot get enough of it. He loves the people, …

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Barrington photographer has an eye for Cuba

Carl Keitner's works will be displayed at Imago next month

Posted

Carl Keitner is drawn to Cuba.

The Barrington resident and longtime photographer has been visiting the island nation for nearly two decades, and still cannot get enough of it. He loves the people, the landscapes and even the broken and decaying buildings.

On his first trip in 2000, Mr. Keitner and his former wife traveled to Cuba to celebrate New Year's. They ended up staying a resort town which, Mr. Keitner said, was not really Cuba.

"So we got into a car the next day and drove into Havana, and I fell in love with Havana," he said. "I mean, literally, I fell in love with Havana."

Mr. Keitner, who will share some of his work in an exhibit at the Imago gallery in Warren next month, found himself taking photographs of everything he saw in Havana: Broken down buildings, well-dressed young people checking their cell phones, a homeless man sleeping on a park bench. All that was around him in Cuba, drew Mr. Keitner's interest.

"It was almost a hook, the love," he said. "At that time you go through Havana and it looked like Beirut. Buildings crumbling. Buildings looked like they were uninhabitable. But people came out of them in pressed, clean clothes, haircuts."

Since his first visit, Mr. Keitner has returned to Cuba six more times. During his most recent trip in April, he traveled into the countryside. His photographs feature farmers who still use animals to plow their fields; tobacco drying huts where men hand-roll cigars.

"I wanted to see the difference between the city life and the country life," Mr. Keitner said. 

The Barrington man captured images of a large hotel-style resort sitting alone in the lush green hills of interior Cuba and questioned why anyone would travel all the way to that country only to sit beside a pool and never see the rest of the nation.

"Sometimes when you take pictures, you put your camera down and watch and see what's going on. Then when you have an understanding of where you are and what is the culture, then you can start taking pictures, and that's what I did in Cuba," Mr. Keitner said. 

"I have an affinity. I go to places where you won't find any tourists. What happens now, because of the restrictions on visiting, you have monster cruise ships come into port with 2,000 people. They visit Havana for a day and they say 'I've been to Cuba'."

'They live the way I lived'

Mr. Keitner's connection to Cuba may run a bit deeper because of his background.

"I was born in 1945, about three months after the war ended in Budapest (Hungary)," he said. "For the first 12 years of my life, Stalin was still alive and running the Eastern Block. And my upbringing, I grew up in a classroom that had a picture of Lenin and Stalin. It was a communist state. I was a pioneer kid — with a neckerchief and everything."

It is through that experience of living under Soviet rule that brought Mr. Keitner closer to Cubans, he said. 

"They live the way I lived," added Mr. Keitner. "They have food rations. It was something that was familiar. When I saw people lining up at a storefront, I knew what they were doing."

But beyond the strife and poverty that he captured with his camera lens, Mr. Keitner recognized a people who were passionate about life.

"They're curious. They dance and they love life, but they would like to make more money and have a better quality of life… Even for the ones who have something, everything is a struggle. They don't sit around and talk about political correctness. They talk about 'Where am I going to get my next meal? When am I going to get my next paycheck? How am I going to buy shoes for my kids?'" he said. 

Mr. Keitner said that he also believes Cubans are similar in many ways to Americans.

"Some of the kids have nice shoes, nice clothes, their hair is quaffed," he said. "Their parents are killing themselves to give things to their kids. They want their kids to have a better life."

Exhibit opens June 7

Barrington resident Carl Keitner will share some of his photographs in an exhibit at The Imago gallery in Warren next month. His exhibit opens on Friday, June 7, from 6 to 8 p.m. He will also share a special talk at The Imago on Thursday, June 13 at 7 p.m., describing some of his experiences to Cuba and the stories behind his photographs.

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.