« Photograph, it’s a behavior, a way of being, a way of living. » It is what Henri Cartier-Bresson told us few years ago and what Arien Chang Castan reminds us today.
Arien always knew that he will do photography. When he was seven years old, he liked playing with his father’s Zenit Russian old camera. He always liked images, colors, movies.
Arien started his career studying paintings but after one year he was not really convinced. In 2003 he started to study photography and as he said “painting is the base of photography”, maybe that is the reason why his feeling was first studying paintings. Reading several books on photography, he discovered some famous and talented artists like Henri Cartier-Bresson – his favorite – Sebastião Salgado and William Eugene Smith. There, his passion for the photography returned.
When its class was over, he “didn’t know anything about photography”. His friends and the practices help him to learn more, to discover and to improve his own photographic style. For 7 years, he made black and white pictures, just analogical pictures. He learnt a lot doing this. Since 2009 he also make colorful photography. Two different kinds of photography, two ways of expressing his feelings.
Arien always wanted to do photostory to document Cuban life. He worked in Freelance for newspaper and brands. The documentary photography offers him the opportunity to expand their horizons and experiences through travel to new and interesting places, first around Cuba and then in the entire world wide. “The silence can explain more than thousand words” said Arien.
“I don’t feel that I’m working when I take picture” he said.
Actually, photography is much more than his job even more than his passion, photography is life lesson, his “way of living”.
If you plan to go to Cuba for Christmas holiday, Remedios is definitly the best place go for the Christmas Eve. You want to know why? Let me explain you!
Trabajos de plaza (San Salvador)
Remedios is a lovelly sleepy village located around 50km northeast of Santa Clara.
It is commonly used by tourists as a base or a stopoff to the beautiful northern Cayo (keys) but this quiet town is becoming the place to be every Christmas for “Las Paradas”. It is a 200 year old tradition. For the festival the city is divided into northern quarter (San Salvador) and southern halve (Carmen). The frontier is running thought the centre of Plaza Marti where the two churches representing each “barrios” are facing.
Each sides is preparing the whole year the confrontation for night of the 24th of December. The opponents mark their own territories with huge constructions call “trabajos de plaza” whose the design change every-year. The celebrations start around 4pm when the plaza Marti is crowded.
Hundreds of fireworks are launched from one side to the other for a few hours. Be careful, it can be dangerous!
Picture of the fireworks in remedios, by Arien Chang Castan
After that, two parades representing the two parts of the town are walking around the square followed by the population who are cheering their own team and teasing the other quarter. Then around 10pm the carrozas make a ceremonials tour of the plaza.
Carroza (San Salvador)
Build to represent the respective halves of Remedios, the carrozas and the trabajos de plaza, are beautiful creations build by the town residents.
Last year and for the first time there is no doubt that San Salvador was the winner because Carmen was not ready on time and they were not able to parade with there carrozas. Normally there is no winner, the both team are doing their best and the game is finishing on draw with a really spectacular show. However since 2014 many refurbishment projects have been lunched in Remedios that involved a lot of inhabitants. Apparently Carmen has not manage to deal with the renovation and the preparation of the parades.
This year and for the 500th anniversary of the town, Carmen is going to prendre sa reva che but San Salvador is ready to compete!
The show should be memorable! Merry Christmas in Remedios or anywhere else!
For very little you can have early access to my WIPs, uncensored (!!) NSFW art and more if you like my work, consider supporting me please (link is also on bio)
Okay so many people reached out about what happened with my commissions price and if my commissions are open so. I am working on commissions right now and I won’t be taking new untill next week (when I finish everything I have atm) BUT I decided to open a waitlist for my new photoshop style. No payment yet, only ideas and sketches.
Feel free to pm me, contact me via email [email protected] , and via discord ReDreArt#4477
i’m very very excited, because my digital art skills aren’t that great (yet!), but i’ve been told my pieces are nice so maybe someone will want a little commission from me :)
to order, please PM me here, or email me to sanguina.vallaATgmail.com
The price for a portrait like shown in the examples is 20$, additional character +10$
From you I’ll need:
reference pics, game screenshots, face claims if you have them or a detailed description of your character
description or reference pics of clothes, if you have some specific outfit in mind
anything you might want from your character :)
I will draw:
canon or OC characters from any fandom - if i don’t know anything about your fandom i might need additional info :)
portrait on a simple coloured background (for now)
I’ll keep you posted every step of the way, email you a sketch and if you’re satisfied i’ll finish the piece. Once you OK the sketch, you can send payment (via PayPal)
