My mom just got back from Cuba today and seemed to have had an amazing time. She was talking about how much poverty there was there, and how that people couldn't even afford shoes or buy things unless someone gave it to them. She even gave them her running shoes, and even though they had virtutally nothing to give back, because of the things she had given away, their made had given her a bracelet she'd handmade, and one of the kabana boys had handmade her this beautiful wooden ornament.

There was one thing that really got me though. She had brough back a picture she'd bough from a street vendor. It was a picture of two children. They had shared a room with their parents and another sibling, and the dog was undernourished. The little girl was drinking sugar water for breakfast because she couldn't afford anything else, and the little boy had a knee brace on each of his knees. Her shoes were too small for her, because she couldn't get any. Her parents monthly income was 15 dollars a month working 6 days a week and fifteen hour days.

Yet somehow, both of them had looked so happy, like they had no idea what they were missing out on. They were enjoying life, when it seemed there wasn't much to enjoy. They had no money,and were completely poor, but when you looked at their faces it was like it didn't even matter. When I saw the picture I had an immediate emotional reaction. I started to completely bawl my eyes out, and I didn't know why. The image was so powerful, so moving that no matter how much I didn't want to cry I did and I wasn't sure whether they were tears of happiness, or sadness.

That's the only time I've ever cried from seeing a photograph, and maybe that changed the way I want to take photographs from now on. I've never though something so simple could evoke so much emotion from me, but I figured that if this wasn't art then I didn't know what it was.