When My friends at The Trinity Star Arts Council in Fairfield, Texas invited me to show my work from Cuba, they asked me to come up with a name for the exhibition. The name of the exhibit was taken from a moment I remembered from my first trip.

I first visited Cuba in 2004, and returned in 2014 as a contributor to the Cuban Footsteps Project, a group of American and Cuban photographers retracing the footsteps of renowned documentary photographer Walker Evans and his first commissioned body of work from 1933. This project added to my 35mm images from 2004, and in the spring of 2018 I returned to continue photographing Havana and the tobacco harvests with Ernesto Bazan.

Three boys and horse. Viñales, Cuba 2004. Silver gelatin work print

The exhibition title “Wandering Not Lost” comes from an encounter I had on my first visit to Viñales with Ernesto Bazan. I had separated from my group to check email at an internet cafe. With very few directions, I was trying to find my friends further down the road. I saw their car parked and walked off to find them. I met some boys in a field who were killing time after school. They were wrestling, taunting farm animals, and playing football. When they saw me approach, they asked me if I was lost. I replied that I was wandering but not lost. It was a chance but memorable encounter that produced a few photographs on the way to my friends.

Group portrait of boys in Viñales, Cuba. taken with Canon Digital Elph - Powershot S400

Two boys taunting a goat. Viñales, Cuba 2004. Silver gelatin work print

The email I had just received was news that my brother and sister-in-law had just delivered triplets. We stopped at Miguel’s house and he personally hand rolled me a cigar to celebrate. My last smoke. Another photographer captured this moment as I sat on the porch. In the background is Willard Pate in action.