I traveled to Cuba to make landscapes, and discovered José Martí. Maybe this was only luck, providing a gringo photographer with a unifying Cuban theme for three idiosyncratic bodies of work. But if this was luck, it was an odd blessing for an author trying to publish in the United States, choosing for my book a hero that few in this country know or care about. And if I assume that finding Martí was an act of chance, I’ll also have to believe that most of the things that have occurred to me amount to a series of accidents that just happen to add up to my life.
I don’t doubt that luck is involved in practically everything we do. But I’m also convinced that we can edit and shape our lives much in the way that I have chosen and sequenced the following photographs, by holding on to what seem the most valuable moments and building on these, one day or one photograph at a time. Time will tell if my photographs of Cuba have significance beyond the pleasure I had in making them, implications for those still squinting at Cuba through an old iron curtain, or relevance perhaps even for Cubans enduring difficult times on the island, waiting for something to happen.
Alex Harris from the preface to The Idea of Cuba

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