Raúl Corrales

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Raúl Corrales (1925 - 2006) was a famous Cuban photographer.

Raúl Corrales Fornos was born into a poor family in rural Cuba and moved to Havanna as a youth. He worked as a newspaper vendor, a shoeshine boy and a janitor, but his hobby of photography grew more and more serious.

In the 1950s Corrales joined the Partido Socialista Popular and worked as a photographer for the Party's newspaper. He specialized in going to the remote parts of Cuba and photograph the everyday lives of poor peasants and workers. During a police raid in the late 1950s by the Batista dictatorship, almost all of Corrales photograpic work was destroyed.

After the popular Revolution of 1959 against the Batista dictatorship, Raúl Corrales joined the Communist Party of Cuba. He was one of Fidel Castro's official photographers for many years. Corrales also worked for almost three decades in the Office of Historical Affairs, helping to preserve and organize the revolution's documentary and photographic legacy.