Cuban Boy Playing Stickball, Havana

The streets of Havana as playground — this fine art documentary photograph of a Cuban boy playing stickball captures one of the most enduring and joyful scenes in the life of the city, a game played with improvised equipment in the narrow streets of Old Havana with the same passion and skill that Cubans bring to baseball on any diamond in the country. Baseball is Cuba's national obsession, woven into the fabric of the culture since the sport arrived on the island in the 1860s, and stickball — played with a broomstick or any available bat and a rubber ball or bottle cap — is how that love of the game begins, in the streets and courtyards of the city, long before anyone reaches a proper field. This photograph finds the game in full flight: the boy's concentration, the improvised bat, the crumbling colonial architecture of Havana as backdrop, the whole scene alive with the energy and colour that make the city one of the most photographed places on earth. A photograph full of life, movement, and the particular joy of childhood sport. Printed on Fuji Crystal Archive paper with optional acrylic glass or Alu-Dibond mounting for a gallery-quality finish.