A photographer named Ernesto Guevara de la Serna

It seems that this man had nothing to lose. He certainly did not. However, amid his many tasks involving the greatest challenges of the Revolution, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna had time to take photographs.

It may look like a hobby. But those who have some degree of expertise in the job will notice there was something beyond just triggering the shutter.

There is a goal. There is a notion of the composition. There is sensitivity to recreate a subject. There is vocation to show.

Some specialists believe that, if he wanted, Che would have enjoyed a wonderful career as a photographer.

Certainly, other was his life’s purpose.

But along with his tight agenda as a politicians and military man, Ernesto Guevara delivered pictures that, in some way, portrayed his convictions, concerns, and his very personal view of the context he lived in…and tried hard to transform.

And he took photos portraying beauty and essence.

His love for the photography began at an early age. And he never stopped doing so. The Che Guevara Studies Center treasured a lot of materials. Most of them are being exhibited now at a travelling exhibition, which opens on the occasion of the Argentine revolutionary’s death anniversary.

Che fotógrafo (Che, the photographer) showcases pictures taken at different times and addresses a varied number of subjects.

For almost three decades now, by the end of 1990, the photography exhibition was partially exhibited at the Casa de las Américas Latin American Gallery, curated by Lesbia Vent Dumois. Since then, some of these pictures have been exhibited in two dozen countries in America and Europe.

Now, enriched by several unpublished materials, the exhibition is going to be showcased in several provinces of the island. And the first exhibition place had to be Santa Clara, the city safeguarding Ernesto Guevara’s remains.

The exhibition is enriched with the documentary Che fotógrafo, where many of his brothers in arms and some specialists discuss about the importance of such photographic heritage.

This exhibition approaches one of the most interesting sides of a man who transcended as a symbol. And he was, actually, the father of his very own symbols.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff