On one hand, it seemed like the worst possible time to write a travel feature on Cuba; on the other, it seemed like the only possible time, because we didn’t know whether U.S. tourists would be completely blocked from visiting the island in the future. (Currently, most U.S. travelers are still able to visit the island using the “support for the Cuban people” visa category.)

For Todd, a staff photographer for The Times, the goal was to capture the movement, energy and sound of Cuban music. He is primarily a still photographer, but you just can’t do a story about music without hearing it, and so he wanted to also incorporate video. (He would travel light, with just two small, mirrorless cameras and a few lenses.) Thanks to the thoughtful design by the team of Rumsey Taylor, Josh Williams and Stephen Hiltner, we have something with a lighter touch, so you can experience the whole story without being distracted by all the elements.

Planning the route and the timing of our trip was complicated. For months, Shannon consulted with Cubans and people who knew the island well, to get a sense of the musical genres we should cover. But when we landed in Havana, our exact schedule was still sketchy: People usually find out about music shows by word of mouth in Cuba, and a majority of venues and bands don’t have updated websites or Facebook pages. Planning the itinerary took as much time as reporting and writing the piece, in the end.