“The title that I have given to this chapter of woe is a metaphorical one. I was not, like Columbus, exactly wrecked upon the coast of Jamaica. I was simply banished there by an Esculapian ukase, and forbidden, under penalty of death, to leave the island for six months. In this light, then, I was cast away, and – may Heaven be thanked for all its mercy! – I live to record the fact.”

Source: Harper’s Magazine

HAVANA — Virtually every square foot of this capital city is owned by the socialist state, which would seem sure to put a damper on the buying and selling of property… But the people of Havana, it turns out, are as obsessed with real estate as, say, condo-crazy New Yorkers, and have similar dreams of more elbow room, not to mention the desire for hot water, their own toilets and roofs that do not let the rain seep indoors.

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SOURCE: With a Whisper, Cuba’s Housing Market Booms , Marc Lacey, The New York Times

They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element.

Stolen from: http://www.exactitudes.com