Snap decisions

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, Feb-March, 2002 by Charles Dews

Maria Martinez-Canas

As a fellow photographer, I should be envious of Maria Martinez-Canas. My biggest exhibition to date has been at "Randy's Koffee 'n' Kreme, a neon cafe in a strip mall in Austin, Texas; she has photos in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Her first camera was a hoity-toity twin-lens Rolleiflex; mine a brown bag Brownie box camera. My parents told me, "For heaven's sake, be a writer. It seems to be just about the only thing you can do"; Martinez-Canas's folks encouraged her to be an artist.

"When I was little, my parents were art collectors and music lovers," says Martinez-Canas. "I was a very lucky individual, because I was exposed to the visual arts very young. You know, many parents wanted their kids to have more traditional careers--my mother is a CPA and my father a businessman--but they both love art and understood my desire to be a photographer." Martinez-Canas is proud and grateful.

In August 1960, three months after Martinez-Canas was born, her parents left Cuba. Her parents were both 23 years old, and had three daughters. Maria is the youngest.

The young family first went to Miami, where they already had property, but it wasn't what they wanted for their children. They longed for a place where they could maintain their Latino roots, their Spanish language, and their Caribbean island culture, so they moved to Puerto Rico in 1964.

"I loved Puerto Rico, especially because we could keep speaking our native Spanish. That was and still is very important to me. I think of myself--and I tell people--I'm a Cuban-born, Puerto Rico-grown, American citizen. I have been influenced by all three of my homes.

"I have no visual memories of Cuba, but Cubans try to maintain their culture and customs and pass them down to succeeding generations. My parents did this well. My father was a businessman who worked in different fields to support his family. He is an art dealer and today has a gallery of Latin American art here in Coral Gables. He has loved art since he was a teenager. He has the mind of a businessperson, no matter whether he is selling art or automobiles."

Here is where the fancy twin-lens Rolleiflex comes into the picture. It had been a graduation present from an uncle to Martinez-Canas's mom, and she had brought it out of Cuba when the family fled.

Martinez-Canas's continues: "I became fascinated with the mechanics of the camera, so I asked my mother to lend it to me. She agreed but made me promise on my life to take care of it. I taught myself how to use the camera and how to develop pictures and print them, all by reading books and magazines. One day I asked my mother and father not to park in the garage anymore because I had made it my darkroom.

"They parked outside," she says, the pride coming out again in her voice. "They allowed me to do it. If there is any such thing as predestination, then I should have been a sculptor or a painter, because all the people in my house were that or musicians, but I chose photography. You know, I have always been fascinated by the science and archaeology of it. I have almost a scientific curiosity. I are not an intellectual, by any means, I just had average grades, good but not extraordinary. But I think it was the science of photography that really caught my attention."

The budding young photo artist was lucky to have had cameras in the home, and she became fascinated with taking them apart and putting them back together, with learning about why photography works as it works, with what light does to photosensitive material. "If you know that," she says, "then you know what photography is all about.

"I used to use a Polaroid Swinger," she said, pointing to a shelf on which sits a little white camera with a red button. "That one. When I was young, and the first time I took pictures with it and opened up that paper and saw the photograph emerge, I was in awe--an image of what I had in front of my eyes on paper amazed me."

Any photographer who has ever submerged a floppy piece of slick white paper in a chemical bath in the darkroom and watched, under dim red light, an image slowly appear where once there was nothing, knows the delicious feeling Martinez-Canas describes. "I remember coming to Miami," she says wistfully, "using the Swinger to take photos in the serpentarium, the place that used to be called Parrot Jungle. I remember photographing animals, serpents, and, you know, the parrots. I also took family photographs."

I think this is what she means by archaeology: "I made documents that spoke of family history. Let's say there's a fire in the house and you ask people what's the most precious possession they would save. People say the family photographs. People love photographs because they can relive an event just by looking at an image on paper. In my family, photographs were precious, because when they left Cuba they didn't have a chance to bring many photos. We have always had friends who would send pictures in the mail. They'd say, I want you to have it; it has your uncle in it. My mom would say, 'this is your great uncle or your grandmother's sister or brother,' family members