August – 2018 – La Storia di Sophia

Stories

Mingled memories

Just some thoughts…

Hi Everyone,

This past week I was at a cozy birthday party. And although the group was small, it split organically into women and men.

In my group the first main subject was retirement homes, a common topic in my generation because most of us are confronted with parents unable to look out for themselves anymore. For me it is history. I was thirty when I had a parent in a nursing home. Not anything I still have the urge to talk about, or worse, being reminded of …

While taking an envious glance at the male group – whose laughter was overtaking the background music – my thoughts were uncontrollably turning into a dark corner of my future. How would I survive in a nursing home? Would my memories be enough to get through a day? Though it would be as if you do not live in real time anymore but only in the past. Would I be able to retain only the happy memories? How do memories get filtered? It must have something to do with what has the most impact. You do not remember trivial things. If positive memories stick better than the negative ones, it certainly means that life has been good to you. But I believe it also relates to one’s character. Optimistic people will tend more to the positive side of life and to happy memories also. What is your opinion? I tend to think of myself as an optimistic creature 😉 Luckily.

My most hopeful vision of myself in my eighties or nineties – if I get that far 😉 – is sitting in a rocking chair in the evening sun, reading a good book – if my sight lets me – or chuckling over sweet and funny memories. Preferably in an “out of Africa” scenery, maybe Tanzania?

What is your hope?

The subject changed over the evening. Into grandchildren. Help! Although it is a more positive topic, I don’t want to think about that yet either!

Make good memories this weekend!

Sophia

17 August 2018 by Sophia

Stories

Korda : beauty and revolution

Hi Everyone,

Do you recognize this photo? If not, you are not a creature walking on this globe 😉

It is the iconic photo of Che Guevara. But few people know who made it. Well, the photographers official name is Alberto Diaz Guitiérrez – later he named himself Korda, because it sounded like Kodak – born in Havana in 1928. His international breakthrough was because of this coincidental picture of Guevara.

After traveling to Cuba in the spring, I was so happy to stroll through Cuba’s history again. Last week I had the chance to visit the exhibition on Korda in Ghent, Beauty and Revolution. In the beautiful historical site of the Sint-Pietersabbey you can admire a thorough overview of Korda’s life and a diversified collection of photos.

Alberto struggled through a lot of jobs before he got intrigued by photography. He then started focussing on advertising and fashion photography and soon became a premiere fashion photographer in Cuba. ‘My main aim was to meet women,’ he later confessed.

Like many other fellow citizens his life dramatically changed because of the revolution in 1959. He was touched by such poverty under Batista’s regime that he favored the revolutionary cause. The picture below was taken of a little girl with a stick in her arms to play with.

“It was while on an assignment for Revolución in 1960 that Korda took the famous photo of Che, at a protest rally after a Belgian freighter carrying arms to Cuba was blown up by counter-revolutionaries while being unloaded in Havana harbour, killing more than 100 dock workers.

As he later recalled, it was a damp, cold day. Using a 90mm lens, he was panning his Leica across the figures on the dais when Che’s face jumped into the viewfinder. The look in Che’s eyes startled Korda so much that he instinctively lurched backwards, and immediately pressed the button: “There appears to be a mystery in those eyes, but in reality it is just blind rage at the deaths of the day before, and the grief for their families.” The Guardian

Korda followed Fidel Castro and his rebellions for ten years, being the personal photographer and friend of Castro. In later years he still excels in underwater photography, a more scientific approach. He is one of the most versatile photographers of his era, zooming in on esthetical as well as ethical subjects. Here you see a combination in one picture: a rebel with beautiful women.