"My cameras are like my eyes and my arms"... 

Rafael responds with his natural enthusiasm when we ask him about his passionate professional world of photojournalism.
Rafael, a Peruvian-American photojournalist, is stubborn when it comes to getting the best news images.
He has a international career of photojournalist with more of 35 years of experience covering the news, a variety sports, culture and visual tempo of our time.  
The most important part of his role as a photojournalist lies in relating to other human beings. Every face has a tale to tell, and every person has a piece of wisdom to share.
From a very young age, his restlessness, his dreams of success led him to discover his true vocation by learning the secrets of photography.
After three decades he is a dynamic and well-known photojournalist at the daily community life, –especially in sports–, in the United States.
Camera in hand, Rafael is very loquacious, versatile, friendly, willing to extend his support to those who need it. Rafael has a journalistic intuition that often goes unnoticed among his colleagues.
From Peru to the United States
Rafael was born in the Constitutional Province of Callao, Peru. From a very young age he was involved in sports, practicing soccer in long days with his neighborhood friends. Later he entertained himself by cutting out the sports photos published in the local newspapers.
In his adolescence, with the guidance of an expert in medicine photography, a friend of the family, Rafael learned the secrets of the photo cameras and the world of the photographic laboratory, “The Darkroom”.
This was useful at the beginning to photograph family marriages, events and birthdays from a very young age.
In the 70s being in his native country, after his High School education, he continued his University career and graduated as Electronic Engineer, however, he decided to lean towards the world of photojournalism.
In 1978 he started working at the illustrated magazine Caretas in Lima, prestigious Peruvian magazine historically -and currently-, recognized as the school of Peruvian journalism. 
In Caretas he met Oscar Medrano Perez, Manuel Vilca and Victor Chacón, emblematic Peruvian photojournalists as well as other colleagues who gave him the inspiration to build on the daily photoassignments.
As the country was going through a severe internal crisis due to the wave of terrorist attacks, Rafael carried out risky work without even thinking that his life often hung by a thread and that on one occasion he was threatened with death.
Almost 10 years after working on this publication, Rafael decided to migrate to the United States. Reuters, the news agency in Washington D.C. It opened its doors where he started as "Freelance".
When The Washington Post, one of the most influential newspapers in the United States, launched its historical sports editions in Spanish in 1997, Rafael was part of the editorial and photography team. After that, Rafael became part of the photographic team that covered the counties of the Washington Metropolitan Area ​​with the weekly supplement the “The Washington Post EXTRAS". He has worked at the Washington Post for 8 years.
Years before, Rafael was part of the team of Hispanic weekly newspapers with a solid presence in the Washington Metropolitan area, El Tiempo Latino and El Pregonero, where he excelled as a photojournalist. His passion for sporting events was always in his daily life. Rafael knew what he saw, discovered, and captured for his camera the quick plays in the rhythm and precise moment.
It’s the ability to respond quickly to news photos and it becomes very true when Rafael says so ... "My camera is my eyes and my arms". He shows it with his images day by day with the -almost imperceptible- sound of his cameras.
As if that were not enough, as Caretas Magazine Photocorrespondant for the USA, Rafael covered the 2018 World Cup in Russia for his fourth WC and the World Cup 2022 in Qatar for his fifth WC in his professional life as a photojournalist... “it's a big challenge for me’…he says… “ it's the great opportunity to capture an incredible feeling generated by the soccer in the immense and varied ethnic world”.
His photos speak for themselves of his wide coverage in the Soccer World Cup Tournaments as USA in 1994, Japan in 2002, and South Africa in 2010.
For Rafael, a conviction photojournalist is a person who has a very deep and particular gift to capture news and experience only with images captured through his cameras.
"It has to be carved deep inside you, it is born with you and it is forged until it becomes something very inherent, enriching itself with all the experiences ..." Rafael tells us.