August 6, 2026

Orlando Carreno

My photographic journey began in Cuba, with a wedding dress box filled with black-and-white prints—family events, familiar faces, unknown people, and mostly candid moments. The box lived under my mother’s bed, and on rainy days, when we couldn’t go outside to play, I would pull it out and look through the photographs for entertainment. We had no TV—but that is another story entirely.

Years later, when our family left Cuba, those photographs became part of what had to be quietly smuggled out. Only a few made it. The box, and most of the images inside it, had to be left behind. I did not know it then, but those photographs had already planted something in me.

My first camera was given to me by my mother, who coincidentally will be 100 years in August. It was a Kodak Instamatic, the one with the flash cube on top. With that camera, I photographed everything and everyone—sometimes with questionable judgment, including one unfortunate photo of my father in a private moment that probably should have remained private.

In high school, I fell hard for photography. I started a layaway plan at a small local camera store, more like a camera closet packed floor to ceiling with everything photographic. I made my weekly payments faithfully until the owner, seeing my dedication, decided to let me take the camera home early. That camera was my first SLR, a Nikkormat FT2, which I still own today—and it still works perfectly.

Then life happened. Raising a family of ambitious kids put me on a long photographic sabbatical. In 2005, I bought my first DSLR, took a few photos, and then—quite responsibly—put it in the closet for several years.
I have been fortunate to travel to more than 30 countries around the world, though for many of those trips I have very little photographic evidence. About ten years ago, I decided it was time to give photography another serious try. Today, I shoot with a Nikon D750 and a Nikon Zf and other analog cameras in my possession. 

My photography is not always glamorous or pretty, but it is mine. I’m drawn mostly to documentary, street, urban, and environmental photography, often in black and white, and I almost always look for a human element in the image. In recent years, I’ve also experimented with landscapes—yawn—quiet scenes without people, and plain, banal objects that somehow insist on being photographed.

As the great street photographer Garry Winogrand is credited with reminding us, “Anything and all things are photographable.” That pretty much sums me up.
I hope you enjoy my photography presentation, and I am grateful for the opportunity!

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​​​​​​Anyone who would like to volunteer for 2026, please let us know!