By Amauris Betancourt.amauris@radioangulo.icrt.cu
The Cuban photographer Felix Arencibia’s death surprised the photo world in the Island. This chronicle was published on hearing from his death.
Felix Arencibia, our Arencibia, has left us physically. The news of his passing away could hardly be believed. The day before he was admitted in the hospital, he put me in touch solicitously with the photographer Roberto Salas from whom I needed a collaboration for La Luz, a cultural weekly from Holguin.
Arencibia was always so: openhanded, solicitous, affectionate and helpful to others as a friend; competent as a professional; engaging and contagious when it came to photography out of the love he had for the art and technique patented by the French Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre.
Holguin’s Photography Club, his closest colleagues, photoreporters all over Cuba, commercial photographers included, were deeply surprised to hear to news.
Desperate due to our distance from Havana, where he lived, we could only have him bought a funeral wreath as a symbol thanks to the brotherly friend Rufino del Valley. A formal gesture compared to the big, truly friendship Arencibia privileged us with.
His long and rich career turns a legacy of dedication and endeavor, an example to the Cuban photo press world. But more than that, he gave us his knowledge that never kept for himself. Always offering because it was better giving than receiving, he taught because he also learned thus.
Those who love photography found an oasis in Arencibia to please our thirst of knowledge; a converging nest at Jose Marti International Journalism Institute, a meeting place for inland photographers while visiting Havana.
Juan Miguel, Juan Pablo, Elder, Edgar, Kaloian, Roy González, Héctor Luis, the namesake Amauris, and other grateful people from Holguin, me included, will miss his friendship, his tireless way of speaking, his timing piece of advice, his everyday e-mails with the most updated news related with the world of photography, his invitations to workshops in Havana, the spaces and opportunities he put at our disposal.
The Jose Marti International Journalism Institute, and Havana, will have a different tinge without him. Felix left us physically. We, however, will bear him in mind and it will be difficult to get used to the habit of his departure, a surprised to him amid all those yearly workshops administer by him. His darkroom was our darkroom! Thanks Arencibia!
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