Manuello Paganelli grew up in Santo Domingo, Italy and Puerto Rico. After a mentorship with Ansel Adams, he worked as a photojournalist at the Chattanooga Times. In 1989, he began to explore Cuba, its land, its people, and its complex relationship with the United States. In 1995, he had the first solo photo show of his work on Cuba, and that same year earned him a fellowship grant.

The Washington Post wrote, “Manuello Paganelli’s Cuban photographs are a brilliant window on a land and people too long hidden from North American eyes. Working in the tradition of Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, Paganelli brings an artist’s eyes and a native son’s sensibility to his superb photographs.” In the early 1990s, Paganelli started work on his Black Cowboys series with a selection being featured at the Annenberg Space for Photography. In the summer of 2012, this same series was selected for the Photo Vernissage at the Manage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Paganelli’s award-winning work has graced the covers and pages of many well-known magazines including Bloomberg Business Week, Forbes, LIFE, Newsweek, Men’s Journal, People, Time, Reader’s Digest, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and many more. He was Ansel Adams last student before death in 1984.

Mr. Paganelli’s fine arts work is represented by the iconic Weston Gallery in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Obscura Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He lives in Carmel and in Los Angeles.

I must have taken Hands of Freedom in 1991 in a small town in Cuba named ‘Florida.’ The day before it rained hard, and the sky was covered with heavy black clouds. The following morning the storm stopped but the sky was still wrapped with grey layers of clouds.

My Cuban assistants and I were heading to my rental jeep to drive away when I saw a lonesome young man from far away as he walked in my direction. I noticed something bright in his hands but couldn’t tell what it was until he got closer and we started to converse. I told him that Picasso once drew a white dove as a peace symbol. His eyes gave me a curious look then he spoke, “I don’t know much about Picasso, but I am sure that he didn’t go hungry.”

Our world can’t repeat the horrors, destruction, family separations, citizens’ displacements and war crimes of past atrocities. In inhuman conditions, lets behave like humans. Cuba, 1991

I had left Otavalo & before the end of the town, at a corner, found this little princess selling her marionettes. There were no adults with her and she only spoke ancient language. Our talk went as far as sharing mutual smiles and a few words that none of us knew. She would giggle and would withdraw into a quiet child-like moment.

As I kept clicking the shutter and advancing the camera, she became my precious little marionette as if she got tired of hanging out with the adults and world leaders who were making decisions about humanity and politics she didn’t understand and wanted to be a girl then climbed down. I put a $20 on her hand, took one of the figurines and waved goodbye. Otavalo, Ecuador, 1999

At the end of a hot humid afternoon, I was getting ready to pack my gear and march away. It had been an uneventful day until I walked by the corral and was captivated by two small young brothers. They wore matching shirts resembling the American flag and were relaxing between a rodeo event. At that moment, with the stars and stripes in their eyes, with a glint of hope and young dreams, I saw painted on their dusty faces the hardship, pain, and sacrifices endured by generations before them, which is quite relevant today. I pulled out my Hasselblad and started to photograph them. I said goodbye and on my way out, with serious eyes and an intention beyond his years, one of the kids called out to me: “Mister, please share our love for horses with other white boys… show them what our granddaddy taught us.” Los Angeles, California, 1996

In 1995, Vibe magazine sent me to Cuba to document an underground hip-hop group of dancers and rappers. Any USA music was prohibited, but it didn’t stop this trio from dancing while Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise played on an old boombox.

We’re in the presence of her great-grandfather Alfonso Melo Quispe whose dark reddish-brown face reminded me of an ancient, creased map which has been folded thousands of times. On his weather-beaten face I saw a large nation of Native Americans, rivers and lakes, mountains and deserts, cornfields turned into battlefields, flying condors and eagles, a lone jaguar, betrayals and forgotten paths. I also noticed that his deep brown eyes carried the weight of sadness. It was the sad face of a tired warrior who had had enough, who knew the meaning of suffering… the face of a blood-stained wrinkle map with a vast hidden history across a long and unfair Herculean journey. Peru, 2019

I saw this man lathering his body with soap and then entering the sacred waters of the river Ganges to clean himself and his soul. Varanasi is known as India’s spiritual capital. It is found in northern India and rests near the bank of the Ganges River, also known as Ganga. It is India’s longest river and undulates its way into the Bangladesh frontier. For the 400 million folks who make their home next to it, it is the primary source of drinking water and farm irrigation.

The river is considered the most sacred in India and is revered as “Mother Ganges.” Each day and night, thousands of Hindi pilgrims take daily baths in those holy waters. From the moment they place their feet inside the water, it is done with a veneration similar to when a Christian believer steps inside a house of worship.

The New Delhi Railway Station it is a very busy place. I have never seen anywhere train places as crowded as it gets in India. I was surprised to have found this rare quiet moment of this captivating girl laying on a large sack on the train platform. She was eating something and with playful hands gestures continued her motions as if nobody was around her space except perhaps for her imaginary friends. There she was on her fairytale train ride to faraway places where admission was only granted to dreamers like herself. I believe that to be joyful and creative it helps to be a dreamer even when traveling to the moon.

One day while working on my documentary about the Midwest, I discovered an Amish community which came up on my map. After my second day, they trusted me and I was welcomed into their elusive inner world. I was treated with an abundance of kindness and love. At first, they kept calling me “The English Man.” I asked an Amish woman why that was since I am not from the UK. With wide open blue eyes and a flirty smile she replied, “Oh don’t worry, English is what we call all non-Amish Europeans.” The third day one of the elders told me, “You are the first English person we have ever embraced here. We don’t know anything about your world or how you will use your recording but for what you told us and the goodness we sense in you, we know that you will protect us and show us in a good light.”

Every morning she would do the chores at her farm just like any man. Some tasks were easy, others were more laborious. Now and then I wanted to give her a hand, and each time she rebuked my offer by saying, “Oh no, this is my job which I really enjoy. In a few days you will be gone and won’t be around to help. Just keep taking your photos but make me look pretty.”  Bossier City, Louisiana, 2007

I was invited to the Fouts’ ranch in Kansas to spend time with their family. I learned plenty about farming life from their daughter, Kimberly. One day her boyfriend was visiting, and they invited me on a horse ride to where the cows were grazing. I jumped on a horse and followed them. We dismounted, and at some point I turned around and saw the couple enjoying a romantic moment. I knew I needed to capture it.