Plaza de San Francisco

Plaza de San Francisco in Old Havana, Cuba, seen at blue hour beside the Basílica Menor de San Francisco de Asís. I made this photo in the evening, when the sky was still bright and the lights inside the bell tower had just started to glow.

I was standing in the square near the Fuente de los Leones, using the fountain in the foreground and the church tower behind it to build the frame. That combination was what caught my eye: the heavy stone of the square, the pale fountain with its lion figures, and the warm light coming through the openings of the tower against the cooler sky. It felt quiet for Havana, at least for a moment, and that calmer mood is what I wanted to keep.

The angle matters a lot in this picture. Instead of trying to show the whole plaza, I kept the composition tight and let the fountain take up a big part of the front of the frame. That gives the photo some depth and also makes the tower feel taller. The old wall running across the middle ties the two parts together, and the small figure near the base helps show the scale without becoming the main subject.

I like how the scene sits between day and night. The stone still holds a little natural color from the last light, while the artificial lighting starts to define the architecture in a different way. The bell tower windows glow softly rather than looking harsh, and the water from the lions adds a bit of movement to an otherwise still scene.

I used the zoom range of my 24-105mm lens to compress the fountain and tower slightly and keep the view clean without stepping too far back. For me, the picture is really about the balance between the square's formal design and the worn surfaces that show its age.