As he walks down the city streets in Old Havana, Cuban photographer Alain Gutierrez enjoys the things he loves best about Cuba: the colors, the people, the emotions, the culture. He wants nothing more than to document and showcase the beauties of his home country for the world to see, and he has thus spent his photography career dedicated to such work.
Born in Guanabacoa, a working class community in Havana, 42 year old Gutierrez comes from a humble beginning. His mother is a school teacher, his father was a truck driver, and his first dream was to become a veterinarian. Photography stood out to him while still in school, purely as a hobby at that time. He enjoyed the challenges photography brings, allowing him to find different angles for everything. At this time, Alain realized he could express himself in different ways.
Gutierrez started his photography career by working 13 years at a cultural center, taking pictures of musicians, exhibitions, and creating advertising for the center. About 5 years ago, his life and career changed when he began working for an American magazine. Food photography was his main focus, but he also took portraits, creating entire interviews with portraits by interviewing a famous chef, writing about their food, and taking photos of plate set ups as well. From there he launched a website and his career took off. “I did all that in 5 years, and it was the boom on my profession and I was able to make a name for myself and my work,” says Gutierrez.
He recently started to work leading photographic tours of Cuba. Through this line of work Gutierrez has met iconic American photographers Peter Turnley and Tommy Crow and he credits these encounters for changing the style and point of view of his photography.
Alain spends his days walking the streets of Cuba, with or without the photography tour groups he has started leading in Havana and beyond. Gutierrez says when he doesn’t have clients he “can’t stay at home. Being lazy drives me crazy, so I have to go to the streets, wander around, taking pictures and documenting everything I see.” To Gutierrez, his style is fluid. He takes photos of anything he deems interesting. His current focuses are street photography and portraits.
Documenting Cuba is what Gutierrez feels most passionate about saying, “right now, what I’m doing with my photography, is to tell the world the contemporary stories of my country…documenting what is constantly happening around me.” About 2 years ago, Gutierrez discovered Instagram with the help of his friend Kenna Klosterman of CreativeLIVE. Since finding Instagram, Alain has been using the app to tell the stories of Cuba that he couldn’t tell in the magazines he was working with. This is the perfect way to express himself and his opinions through photos. It very important for Gutierrez to capture this particular period of his city and country, and he offers his photos to the world as a way to travel through Cuba if they haven’t had a chance to go in person.
What motivates and is most important to Alain is being a part of the story, a brick in the wall of contemporary Cuba. He wants to focus his work now on showing the future this time in history. And because of this he feels that “documenting the cultural history and people in Cuba is the perfect job. I get paid to do what I love and help make a difference.”
When asked the most perfect spot to take a photo in Cuba, Alain just laughed and said “it’s funny because in Cuba, everywhere is a photo opportunity…but, if you had to pick just one place, the streets of Old Havana are the most intriguing.”
If Gutierrez wasn’t a photographer, he says “I would like to be an actor or a musician, I like people!”
One of Alain’s favorite photos that he has taken is a remake of the iconic flag raising in Japan during the second world war. Gutierrez recreated the same situation with his son and his son’s friends and the Cuban flag.
Regarding this photo, Alain says, “I think this catches the period of the new time we are in. I have always had faith that Cuba and America would start to have conversations and be friends. I took this photo in 2015, a year before the conversations and political melting started, and for me, it carries a very good message.”
Lastly, when asked what advice he always gives to photographers coming to Cuba, Alain sits back, relaxes and says, “Smile, that’s absolutely most important here. Smile and then take the photo you want, as the people of Cuba enjoy a friendly face and again a smile.”
To learn more about Alain Gutierrez and his work go to:
Instagram | Website
