Cuba, Crash landings and that C bug

I opened my eyes on the galley floor at the back of flight 23 to Auckland from Vancouver.

2 flight attendants leaned over me. My last memory was leaving my seat 6 rows back to go to the bathroom.

‘This will sting a little’ said the flight attendant as he dabbed at my face. I had blacked out on the way and crash-landed in the galley.

The night before that I’d had dinner with a photographer from Johannesburg in Mexico City, and the night before that I’d been drinking Pina Colada’s in Havana with photographers from London, Vancouver, Melbourne, Sydney, and Auckland.

I put it down to exhaustion.

We’d been in Havana for almost 2 weeks, but the journey had started online 5 weeks earlier with the Series Project Program. Every week my biz buddy (and amazing photographer) Billy Plummer and I took a group of photographers through the steps to come up with an idea with depth, which they could execute in Cuba in a series of images.

By the time we hit Havana the tourist layer had already been scraped off, and on the first day our intrepid project makers were meeting with local fishermen, artists, animal rescuers, dancers, and even prostitutes as they each got stuck into their respective projects.

For me it was fascinating to watch everyone’s process, the way they handled curveballs and managed their time, gear, and team. Who they enlisted to help them (or didn’t) and how prepared they were. Their different levels of focus and interaction with the locals, and ultimately how this all translated into the unique way each of their individual lenses saw Havana.

There’s no doubt the resulting visual stories will be appearing in many award shows as all the previous Series Project work has done. I’m utterly confident in that.

It’s exactly one week since I emerged in arrivals at Auckland Airport from that flight home, a band-aid on my face and a throbbing knee. I’ve spent much of that week in bed with C*ovid (not allowed to use the world or this will go into your junk mail.)

‘It will be a good story’ said one of the photographers in our WhatsApp group.

He was right.

To be part of The Series Project you must have had your work assessed first. Schedule a free call with me here to discuss the next steps and what it takes to be a Series Project Maker.