On the morning of my first full day in Havana, my friends and I exited our hotel, picked a direction at random, and started walking. With its unique architecture, colorful people, and old American cars, there was no shortage of photogenic subjects upon which I could focus my lens.

One of my traveling buddies had the exact same camera that I did (in fact, seeing a demo of his camera two years before in Mexico was a major influence on my purchase) and we each clicked through our first rolls of film on throw-away pictures – crowded streets, cars, statues; the kinds of travel pictures that are fun to show your friends and family, but otherwise have no redeeming value.

About a half hour into our walk along the Malecón, I came upon this woman, sitting on the breakwater, gazing out to sea. I stopped to compose this shot, my friends getting ahead of me. I only took the one picture, but when I caught back up to my photographer friend, I told him, “I just took my first good picture in Cuba.” It was the first of many.

On a side note, I don’t usually put a lot of time and energy into naming my photographs, but I happen to really like the title I chose for this picture: “Ninety Miles Away.” From Havana, looking north as the girl in the picture is doing, the tip of Florida is exactly that.