A member of the revolution1s first generation of photojournalists, Robert Salas is ranked, along with his father Osvaldo an colleagues Alberto Korda and Raul Corrales, as one of the founders of modern Cuban photojournalism.

Born and raised on New York City, Salas’s first important professional experience came helping his father on a Cuban magazine assignment to document Fidel Castro’s 1955 visit to New York City to raise funds for the Revolution.

That initial contact with Castro marked a lifelong commitment for Salas to the Cuban Revolution.

Salas continued to work with the Cuban delegation that remained afterCastro returned to Cuba, and helped stage and photograph the notorious incident when the flag of the revolutionary July 26th movement was draped on the Statue of Liberty. A photograph of the incident was published in Life magazine.

Within days after the triumph of the Revolution, Salas flew to Havana where he met Castro and was asked to work for the Revolution’s many newspapers and magazines.

When I started at 18 it was a great adventure going from the subways of New York to Havana, recalls Salas. Instead of photographing weddings and birthdays, I was photographing the leader of a Revolution.

Salas remains active, experimenting with collage and digital imaging, and is currently working on a book documenting Fidel Castro and the last 40 years of the Revolution.

-Richard Pitnick
B/W Magazine