Havana Plaza Vieja Cafe Chairs and Shadows Black and White Photography

Empty Tables Above A Lattice Of Morning Light

I found these cafe tables empty early one morning in Plaza Vieja, Havana. What drew me in was the pause before the day became busy, together with the intricate shapes falling across the paving. In this 2017 photograph, the chairs and their shadows give an ordinary outdoor seating area a much more complex visual rhythm.

The closest table enters from the left, its pale square top divided by clear straight lines. Dark metal chairs surround it, with curled details near their backs and a network of thin bars below. More tables repeat farther into the frame, becoming smaller as they recede. Their bright surfaces create resting places for the eye within the denser pattern of metalwork.

Sunlight makes the shadows as noticeable as the furniture itself. Chair legs and decorative curves stretch across the rectangular paving blocks, crossing the orderly joints at different angles. Some areas become almost black, while others remain bright enough to show the worn texture of the ground. I like how those overlapping lines turn a familiar cafe scene into a study of light and geometry.

There are no diners or coffee cups to direct attention elsewhere. The photograph holds on the empty seats and the space between them, keeping the quiet quality that first caught my eye. Black and white gives the scene a graphic clarity without removing its sense of place. For a kitchen, dining area or reading corner, this Havana detail offers the character of an outdoor cafe through simple objects and a particularly rich pattern of shadows.

© Dan Kosmayer, 2017