“Photography is not just an art and a trade, it is an attitude towards life”, affirms the Cuban photographer Yaimí Ravelo.

Photo: Roberto Chile.

“I am not looking for a good photograph;

I see a good photograph”.

(Raul Corrales)

"Blonde, very Cuban, with a black grandmother, Yaimí Ravelo has such great honesty and nobility that they make her rise and grow whatever the challenges may be."

Says the journalist Graciela Ramírez, director of Cuba en Resumen, the Havana correspondent for Resumen Latinoamericano, an Argentine multimedia where the young photojournalist has been working since 2017.

In love with the job of putting an image on the news, Yaimí had her baptism of fire as a correspondent for the

newspaper in Venezuela.

The moments lived there, and particularly one of her photographs, marked her destiny.

“From that day on, I climbed another level as a photojournalist and also as a human being.

I said to myself: 'Nothing will stop me'”.

For this creator of the lens, "photography is not just an art and a trade, it is an attitude towards life."

It is enough to look at some of her images to discover the sensitivity that predominates in her photographic narrative and the sagacity of her gaze.

In your photographic narrative, the sensitivity that characterizes you predominates.

Among your most representative images, one in which the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, is seen surrounded by a crowd marching down a street in Caracas, stands out.

Under what circumstances did you take it?

–It was during a march that took place on February 12, 2014, just six months after Nicolás Maduro officially held office as president of Venezuela.

That day a coup attempt broke out in the country.

There was violence in the streets as a consequence of the guarimbas.

There was no public transportation, the Caracas subway did not work, the atmosphere was chaotic.

I had been in Venezuela for 10 months and luckily I already knew the main streets of the city.

A journalist from the Information System, his cameraman partner and me as a photojournalist for the

, we decided to walk to the place where Maduro would be together with the young people who were counteracting the coup that the Venezuelan right was brewing, because we felt the need to send information and images to Cuba about what was going on at that moment in that city, where It was also waging a strong media war.

“The crowd was so big and we were so focused on doing our job, that we ended up splitting up.

Suddenly, I found myself alone with my camera trying to find a place to position myself.

So I managed to get a family to let me go up to the roof of their house, and from there I could see Maduro surrounded by a sea of ​​people and take this and other photographs of that historic moment with a Nikon D200 camera and a NIKKOR 80-200mm f zoom lens. /2.8D”.

Maduro on the march with students.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

What meaning does this image have in your career?

–That moment profoundly marked my training as a press photographer.

Feeling the need to take pictures of a crucial fact or event in the history of a town, regardless of effort or risk, generates enough adrenaline to overcome any obstacle.

“You have no idea what you are capable of doing until you face life-threatening situations.

For me there is no competition in photography.

As this is such a subjective profession in terms of creativity, all photographers bring unlimited value to the documentation of any event, places or portraits of people or figures of public significance”.

No fear of Irma.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

What motivates you the most about your work as a photojournalist?

–Trying to give people what I appreciate through the lens.

It is a constant challenge to try to convey exactly what I am feeling in the different scenarios where I find myself when I have the camera in hand.

There is no one person exactly the same as another, this is the case with photography when it comes to making and interpreting it.

It is a fascinating world where reality is reflected in a constant play of light and shadow.

How do you prepare physically, technically, mentally and culturally to take on the challenges that this profession demands?

–The preparation is daily, constant and even unconscious.

It is good exercise for image makers and facilitates professional preparation to see all possible photographs and to see films with good photographic quality.

It helps a lot to see the work of other colleagues, analyze the details, what they did in the different contexts, angles, framing, light exposures.

Identify how they achieved the images that most impact them.

This exercise, far from imitation –something that I believe is impossible in our profession–, helps to eliminate technical errors that can creep in when handling the camera.

“My mental preparation has been very marked by the security towards the type of photography that I defend, nothing is wrong considering that photography is also creation and art.

However, photojournalism carries within itself 'laws' that we must comply with for the good practice of transmitting information, unless the use of art and creativity in an informative photo carries with it the semiotics of what is wanted. convey.

Walking with the camera on our backs: the best exercise that we photographers can do”.

I share the concept that photography has no limits;

In my view, none.

However, press photography imposes inviolable precepts.

What do you do to quench your creative thirst and give free rein to your imagination?

I am a free woman in a free country.

I feel free of thought and moral ties, perhaps influenced by the wonderful land where I was born and grew up.

Many people, perhaps the majority, have a hidden inner world, unexplored by the rest of the people, that inner world can be dark or full of light, where bad feelings and good feelings coexist.

The prevailing light and good feelings depend on our quality as human beings.

“In photojournalism, from my experience, full freedom does not exist, we respond to the editorial policy of a specific media outlet and to the norms and precepts of press photography.

It is then up to our creativity to break some schemes, but it is a difficult battle when it comes to publishing, it hurts not to publish an image that you made with passion and that expresses something deep about you because it does not fit the profiles of the medium.

“We photographers are lucky – and I feel lucky in that sense – to show through the lens a large part of that different and wonderful world that exists in human consciousness.

For me, the magic is in the details, in the imperceptible, in the different colors that life adopts when a good light hits it.

“I have the happiness of working for a medium where the priority is graphics, where the image –whether still or video– carries the leading voice of information.

A concept that is very much in line with these times, in which the way of communicating on social networks is constantly evolving.

"I am fully happy when I take refuge in the art of photography and I can show, as in my self-portraits and other experiments, a part of me."

Pictures of Yaimi Ravelo:

Tornado in Havana.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

Rescue on the Saratoga.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

Peace, faith and love.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

Militia.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

Ever onward to victory.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

Duel.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

Farewell.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.

Boot.

Photo: Yaimi Ravelo.