“I’d always wanted to go there,” she told The Graceful Taylor in a recent interview. “I learned the language really fast because I wanted it so much. And I loved it.”
She took a camera, of course, but only as a travel accessory. “I had no plan to be an artist photographer.” Then, back home again and showing others the photos from her trip, she realised that she’d produced some extraordinary images.
“People encouraged me to put them into a book, so I decided to go back a second time with the intent to photograph the people. I wanted to get them working.”
She sure did that. We adore these images, from her first book Cuba Que Bolá, which is now in its third edition.
Tania has a second Cuban book, Retrato De Los Santos, documenting the year she spent living with the people who practise Santeria, or voodoo. “They were poor. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t romantic. It was really hard. It left me with some horrible impressions, but also some amazing ones.”
Her Cuban work is “a few years ago now, but I’d like to go back. I want to take my children”.
Speaking of children, The Graceful Taylor is mightily partial to Tania’s portraits of siblings and school groups. If only there’d been a Tania Jovanovic when we were at school, we’d be tempted to bring out the old school photos with pride instead of embarrassment...
Asked how she gets such honest photos, Tania says “I take lots of shots. And I can feel that moment when they break down from the pose. That’s the moment I want. I wear them down until I get it!”
Check out Tania’s body of work on her website. And next time you need a photo to be proud of, you know where to go.
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