AIR FORCE ONE IN CUBA

We were a team of photographers getting ready to cover the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama to Havana and we were planning how to illustrate his arrival before setting foot on Cuban soil. There was a lot of brainstorming and we decided to try to capture an image of Air Force One flying over Havana before landing at the airport. This being the president of the United States, he could probably fly in from any angle, so we split up looking for different positions around the airport with some visual detail that would explain that the plane of the U.S. president was about to land in Cuba. I wanted to go to a neighborhood near the airport, secluded from traffic and away from the security guarding the surroundings of the airport.

The office hired a motorcycle driver from the same neighborhood for me, I packed one camera with a short lens in my back pack and off we went. We arrived several hours early and just hung out discreetly. Suddenly I saw a plane, part of the advance team of the White House flying over and I realized that I was in the right spot. Next I heard the turbines and there it was, Air Force One. A few people were standing on the street, looking up into the sky as the massive plane, its colors matching the cars, approached the airport.