Yander Zamora

Born in Santiago de Cuba, I grew up among Havana’s weathered walls, radio antennas, film rolls, and newsrooms filled with the scent of ink and urgency. As the son of a journalist, I learned early on that images can outlive words, and that photography is not merely a way of seeing, but a way of preserving memory against disappearance.
For years, my work has focused on documenting the Cuban reality from within — its silences, contradictions, beauty, decay, and resilience — building a visual testimony of a society suspended between ideology, survival, and transformation. Much of my photography revolves around capturing fragments of a world that may soon vanish entirely: the final traces of a communist Cuba shaped by isolation, nostalgia, dignity, and human endurance.
Now based in Madrid, I continue to work at the intersection of documentary photography and visual art, exploring themes of identity, memory, exile, power, and the fragile relationship between history and everyday life.
My images have been published internationally through collaborations with Reuters, AFP, EFE, Bloomberg News, and El País, among others. I was honored with the Premio Internacional de Periodismo Rey de España and the Premio Ortega y Gasset. In 2017, one of m...

International Institute of Journalism “José Martí”

Opening Exhibition at Estudio Z, Havana, 2024
International King of Spain Journalism Award for Best Photography (2017)
Periodismo Ortega y Gasset 2017
Exhibition and Artist Talk at Spazio 5, Rome, 2017
Photograph selected by TIME Magazine as one of the 10 Most Influential Images of 2017
Tribute Exhibition to The Rolling Stones, sponsored by the British Embassy Havana, Havana, 2024