By Rosa María Fernández on March 31, 2026
I almost met Perfecto Romero once in May 2011. Alicia Jrapko and I were speaking at the office of Palante, the weekly cartoon and humor magazine in Havana and the unassuming photographer of the Cuban Revolution was there in attendance. We were there because during one of our visits with Gerardo Hernandez, in Victorville Federal Penitentiary he asked us to open up a connection with Palante where he had been a regular contributor before his arrest. Gerardo, one of the Cuban 5, was serving 2 life sentences and 15 years for monitoring the activities of anti Cuban terrorists operating with impunity in Miami. Most now know Gerardo as the National Coordinator of the Cuban Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), but during the struggle to Free the 5 Gerardo’s clever and poignant political cartoons where of great value in our work. He was able to mail his work to us and we digitalized them and emailed them to Palante to print.
We left the meeting not realizing that Perfecto Romero, who accompanied Fidel and Che, documenting in iconic images that will forever immortalize the process and victory of the Cuban Revolution, was there. Later that day we returned to the pension where we were staying and the woman at the desk handed me this signed photograph of Che and his daughter wrapped in a newspaper. It has been on the wall in my living room ever since. The character and humbleness of the photographers of the Cuban Revolution is explained here in Perfecto’s own words that it was his job that was essential like all others, carried out with old equipment and the struggle to keep their film dry in the heat and rain. – Bill Hackwell, Resumen Latinoamericano – US editor
In Perfecto Romero’s own words
I was born in the Escambray Mountains in 1936, and I know exactly what that was like. I was living in Cabaiguán when, as members of the July 26 Movement, we were summoned by the coordinator, whom we knew as Dr. Vera. He told us—the five comrades present—that Che Guevara’s troops needed reinforcing and asked if we were willing to do so. All five of us raised our hands, agreeing in unison.
We set out around four in the morning on that day in October 1958 to meet Che. As we were on our way, thinking it was about twenty kilometers on foot, a rental car suddenly appeared and the driver gave us a ride as far as Santa Lucía.
We looked for the leader of the vanguard—they called him Silva—and he told us to wait for a truck from the camp, which was coming after noon. Around two in the afternoon, a man appeared, and Silva told him about us. The newcomer was called Barbarroja; he put us in the jeep and took us to Che. Manuel Piñeiro Lozada, Barbarroja, was promoted by Fidel to commander in 1958, along with four rebel captains.
He had barely turned 22 and was already a photographer. At my insistence, Alfredo Rodríguez, a friend who worked at the town’s photography studio, taught me. Since I was so interested, I would spend hours developing the photographs taken by his father, who was also skilled in the trade. I learned to develop and print, though unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera to practice with.
I helped my brother sell and distribute bread, and since I belonged to the Orthodox Youth, I also handed out July 26th vouchers, with which many people contributed 5 or 10 pesos.
On one of those trips to Cabaiguán, I went out to deliver the vouchers that people were contributing to the struggle from the underground, when I heard gunshots.
That’s why I stayed hidden for quite a while, because I didn’t know what was happening, and when I got home, around midnight, my mother was waiting for me, sitting on a stool. Imagine, she was very scared.
That night I could barely rest; I had to get up at three in the morning to receive the bread, package it, and distribute it to homes and to some tobacco-picking sites.
When I hung the bread on a nail, the liter of milk was already there, and no one touched it.
In those brief hours of rest, the anxiety caused by that shooting left me startled, and my sleep turned into a nightmare. I imagined that someone had ratted me out, that the police were raiding my house and trampling over my parents, searching even the ceiling. I could even hear the noise on the roof tiles. I forced myself to wake up, to feel the relief of the deathly silence of the early morning.
I went to the bakery and when I finished, around eight in the morning, I told a neighborhood shoemaker about that nightmare. He looked at me seriously and said with certainty: “Play 251, ‘police.’”
Later on, I found a lottery ticket with that final number. Even though I didn’t have much money, I bought the ticket. When the National Lottery was drawn, I won the first prize, which was about 900 pesos. A lot for that time.
Overjoyed, I went straight to Alfredo, the photographer. Even though I needed everything—I had no shoes, no clothes—I had only one thing on my mind: the camera. I was already hopelessly in love with photography.
We bought the camera, the developing chemicals, the film, the flash, and I gave some money to my mom, because I spent almost everything on that. Since my friend taught me how to use the camera, the following Saturday I went to Trocón, a rural spot where people went to relax, and I started taking my first photos. I felt comfortable with the camera because I’d been at it for over a year—I even developed the photos myself. I took 5×7 photos and priced them at 50 cents.
That day, things happened to me that I’ll never forget. I could take eight photos or 16, but to take that many, I had to make some adjustments first. I had to attach the film holder and switch out the camera’s viewfinder. Because of those beginner’s mistakes, I forgot the last step.
At parties, you see all kinds of things. A man holding a pork leg asked me for a photo, as did another man dancing with his potential girlfriend. Everything was going well until I developed the photos. That’s when I got a chill; the only thing that came out was the leg of pork, and in the other photo, only a part of him and the woman’s hands were visible. I couldn’t get over my astonishment—it was terrible because I charged in advance.
Faced with the question of what to do, I didn’t hesitate; I printed the photos and handed them to a driver to take to their recipients. About three days later, the driver came to the bread stand to tell me: “Get out of here—Marcelo, the guy with the girlfriend, is looking for you with a machete in his hand.”
I went into hiding, and time passed. When I joined Che’s troops, the first person I ran into was Marcelo, the guy from the photo who lived in the Escambray. We laughed for quite a while, because he’d wanted to win the girl over with that photograph. Later, we became close friends.
That’s how I got my start as a photographer. The following week I took photos at quinceañeras and birthday parties, and they turned out beautifully.
When I decided to join the uprising, I couldn’t imagine that this experience would be of any use; because like everyone else, I wanted to fight. I had the camera hanging around my neck, because I thought that if the rural guard stopped me on the way to this objective, I would tell them the only truth that could save me: I’m a traveling photographer.
Fortunately, our arrival at the El Pedrero camp in Fomento went smoothly. We walked to the back of a closed, empty wine cellar when Barbarroja said to me: “Look, that guy sitting on the stool, smoking a cigar, is Che.”
The five of us had to face him. I felt he was scolding the other comrades for coming up there without a weapon. He told them he’d already distributed the ones he had, and that, in a war, you have to go armed. Even if that meant they had to ambush a soldier from Batista’s guard and take it from him.
I was the last to enter. When he looked at me, he smiled, but he still told me that if I went to war unarmed, I needed a rifle there. I tried to excuse myself by saying we hadn’t had time on the way out. Che looked at me intently and said: —And what is that?
—A camera, I replied.
—Oh, really? he said ironically.
I tried to explain that I was a photographer, and he asked to borrow my equipment. He began inspecting it and said that he used to be a sports photographer, working covering soccer matches for a magazine in Mexico. He went on talking about his purpose.
“I want to start a guerrilla newspaper, and you’re going to be the war correspondent. So, you’re staying,” Che said.
To my astonishment, what came out of my mouth was: “But I came to fight.” To which Che replied: “Here there’s a cook, a shoemaker, and a tailor, who all have a role. And they’re just as important as the rest.”
That’s how he convinced me, and I said, “I’ll stay.” Then he told me to find Olo Pantoja, so he could help me set up a darkroom to develop the photos. He was concerned that press photographers were coming all the way out here, and he had never seen any of the photos they took.
Nearby, we saw a small, closed-up school that barely had an entrance door, and I told him that was the right place. He told me to leave at five in the morning with the messenger known as El Chino; we had to go to Sancti Spíritus to get the necessary supplies. He put 500 pesos in my hands and said, “Buy everything you need.”
I made a list of everything: lamps, chemicals, trays, an enlarger, photographic paper, a few more rolls of film, among other things.
El Chino was a nurse, the son of an Asian man and a Cuban woman, who took me in as family. At his house, they had food and a columbina ready, with the warning that I wouldn’t be able to even peek out the door. Thankfully, the comrades from the 26th of July Movement showed up right away to find out what I was looking for. I showed them the list and they went out to get it, though they wouldn’t accept the money I put in their hands.
Five days later, they came back saying the enlarger was nowhere to be found. They managed to get everything else. So, I got ready to go back with El Chino, who was loaded down with stuff—from surgical equipment to clothes and bedspreads to cover us, because the cold was eating away at our bones.
He was also carrying a note stating that three doctors wanted to join the guerrilla forces. Including the son of the captain of the rural guard in Cabaiguán. Imagine that!
As soon as I saw Olo Pantoja, I gave him back the 500 pesos and told him the enlarger hadn’t turned up. But that wasn’t the only obstacle.
Che knew he could put out a newspaper, because he’d had that experience. It wouldn’t be easy, though, because the printing press was very heavy and he couldn’t get it up there. That said, he did have his radio set and his typewriter.
He finally set up a newsroom in the house where the mayor of Cabaiguán lived. I could take the photos, but I couldn’t transfer them to film; so they used the printing press where movie propaganda was made and printed those loose sheets, like a newsletter. Then the sheets were bound together. He knew the importance of doing journalism under those conditions, which is why he wanted to repeat in the Escambray what he had done in the Sierra Maestra with the newspaper *El Cubano Libre*.
When I went up to the camp, I brought a few 120-millimeter rolls of film, because I didn’t have much money. I remember asking the shopkeeper for credit, and he gave them to me because I told him I’d pay him back. And I did, as soon as the Revolution triumphed. You could take eight frames per roll, and we’d get a few more along the way.
When I arrived from Sancti Spíritus, before dawn I went out with a group to cut the railroad tracks so that the tyranny’s reinforcement trains couldn’t pass. We did it on the bridge over the Las Calabazas River, between Placetas and Cabaiguán. Then we “cut” the bridge over the Sagua La Chica River, which is in Falcón.
On the way back, people were already heading out to take Fomento, and I was the war correspondent, without even intending to be. I moved wherever I needed to; I didn’t have to rely on anyone. I was like “Che’s son.”
Later, I joined those going to take Cabaiguán, because it was my hometown. There I took many photos while Che met with the people. He always explained to them that after taking the town, they had to protect that place and not allow the forces of the tyranny to enter again.
They gave me a .38 revolver, but I never had to use it, even though I was very exposed to danger. On one occasion, a mortar shell landed right next to me, and a fragment went through a comrade’s throat, seriously wounding him.
When we returned to camp, the three doctors who had joined Che’s unit were already there. It was incredible for me to see that the commander of the army barracks (under Fulgencio Batista) in Fomento had also joined them. He was a mortar specialist who had studied in the United States.
I also saw Quid Casanova, another friend of mine I grew up with, though at that moment I was upset with him because he had joined the “casquito.” Later I ran into him at the camp and he told me that was his way of getting a rifle so he could come up and fight with us. We went through all kinds of things—terrible stuff!
I was with Che in Cabaiguán. During the night, he went up to the second floor to keep the town’s barracks in his sights; that’s where he was accidentally wounded in the forehead, above the eyebrow, when he collided with a television antenna and fell from up there. As a result, his arm was shattered, and he was treated by a phenomenal orthopedic surgeon who decided to immobilize it. Those are the photos where you see him in a cast.
Che set up his office in a tobacco drying shed. Captain Ángel Frías, who went to see him, told me to get in the car with him. As I sat down, he looked back, and I saw they had a .30 machine gun, two mortars, and that first lieutenant, the head of Engineering, a mortar specialist. As we continued on our way, I realized we were heading to Yaguajay.
On that December 28, 1958, we found Camilo and four comrades waiting for this shipment on a beach, and at that moment I suggested taking a photo of them before the capture of Yaguajay. Years later, a monument to Camilo was erected at that spot based on that photograph.
I asked his permission to stay, and he said yes. I started taking photos everywhere. When they took the town, Camilo spoke to Batista’s guards, urging them not to shed blood and to surrender. He told them that no one would come to help them.
Thirty minutes passed before the final showdown, and Camilo emphatically told the mortar operator: “And you, don’t you dare fire!” He replied that that was why he had come. To which Camilo replied: “Don’t shoot, because your brother is in there.” Camilo knew that he had a brother who was a sergeant in Batista’s army, inside that barracks.
I returned to Cabaiguán and set out for the capture of Placetas. In an office, I found Che and Núñez Jiménez drawing up plans for how to enter Santa Clara, because it was no easy task.
I went to the radio station and took some photos of Barbarroja, alongside young people from Placetas, speaking to the townspeople. I continued on to Santa Clara with Che’s troops and took photographs that later became very well-known, showing him with his arm in a cast, standing in front of a tank and speaking to the young fighters.
The next day, we continued with the troops toward Havana. It was the early morning of January 3, 1959, when we entered La Cabaña and took up positions in one of those houses. At dawn, we took some photos with our rifles in hand, and I went off to fulfill a dream: to see a ship. There was a German vessel, and we took pictures of ourselves.
I wasn’t truly aware that this visual record was historic. I never thought about it, but that’s what I was doing. My photography captured the actions of the Rebel Army.
I could take photos in any way. It seems that was in me, even though I was a peasant. From the age of seven, my father took me to the fields, and I had to drive the oxen, just like a man. I shined shoes, weeded plots of land, painted houses, and worked as an assistant in a sheet metal shop. Nothing tied me down. Life takes many turns; that’s just how it is. Photography was still on my mind, and it captivated me.
In Havana, I went out to take photos when I found out Fidel was coming. I went with two comrades who were dressed in civilian clothes. They lent me a camera, but I also had my own, a German Bessa, which wasn’t bad; the thing is, it was a bellows camera. It’s that type of camera designed in the daguerreotype era. I still have it, though it needs repair.
We headed to El Cotorro, because Camilo was already there, and I took those photos everyone knows. I came with the Caravan of Liberty to the pier, in front of the Navy base, and we watched the Granma yacht entering the bay.
There was a small Navy boat; I asked them for permission to take me out, and they did. I photographed the yacht Granma, with that image of Havana in the background. Fidel jumped onto the Granma with immense joy. There’s that unpublished photo where a Navy officer puts his sailor’s cap on him. Celia and Camilo were there; he, always so outgoing, stayed talking with some people.
A few days later, Fidel went to see Che at La Cabaña. A comrade told me that Che wanted to see me, so I went to where he was recovering, though he already looked better. Then he told me to go to the Columbia camp and see Captain Ramos. Ramos welcomed me warmly, telling me they didn’t have a photographer, and guided me on where to set up. I joined what would become the newspaper Verde Olivo, as the publication’s first photographer.
It was March 1959. At the Columbia camp were those who would later become the founders of ICAIC. I met Marta Rojas and other figures, trying to organize what would become the newspaper. Although, there was no equipment there, nothing at all.
That’s when I went to the Press and Radio office, which was right nearby. I spoke with a cameraman I’d met in Yagüajay, known as Tabaco, and he let me develop the photos there because they had the resources. There were also four photographers who had been with Batista’s military press; they passed on their knowledge of the trade to me. I was the only one who came from the Rebel Army.
That’s why I spent so much time with Camilo, because he asked me to accompany him every time he traveled to Ciego de Ávila, Trinidad, and countless other places. By chance, he didn’t take me to Camagüey.
I also met the Chilean Orlando Contreras, a great journalist. Later, we moved to what was then the BRAC—that is, the former Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities. When we were at the printing press in Old Havana, Che visited us; he took an interest in *Verde Olivo* and the newspaper’s design.
I remember we had to bring Che the galley proofs of what was about to go to press, when he was already at the National Bank. Above all, because Cuba was under surveillance by the United States and the national oligarchy regarding any conceptual matter that was published. I was accompanying Rosendo so he wouldn’t have to walk alone around midnight, and there we waited for Che to finish his class with his advanced math professor, who was from Santa Clara. Sometimes we’d leave at two in the morning with what was to be published in the tabloid. Che wrote a few things, and he did it very well.
Looking back, time flies toward the most momentous events of our lives as photographers. Thus I recall the cosmic flight of the first Latin American cosmonaut, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez. We documented it with a visual record that remains forever. We were present during training, including the moments leading up to the flight and the landing at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
We recall the memorable times of internationalist service and the countless opportunities to accompany the principal leaders of the Revolution. Among those trips, I highlight Chile, Peru, Mexico, the Sahrawi Arab border, and the then-socialist countries.
The exhibitions of our photographic work, displayed in various countries, have been very special. These are well-known photographs of Che, Camilo, and Fidel during their time in the guerrilla movement, in the city, or some very exclusive shots of their family life. What matters most for a photographer is to be in the right place at the right time. Just as it happened with Camilo and his sculpture, the same occurred with the monument to Che Guevara in Santa Clara, where sculptor José Delarra used eight of my photographs to define that magnificent figure.
When the Revolution triumphed, I was in fifth grade; I managed to finish high school because they urged all of us to better ourselves. Eighty-five percent of the combatants were illiterate. They set up schools in the barracks, and we had to study after work. Later, I enrolled in journalism school, but I never liked writing, even though I tried. I don’t know, it seems I became a good photographer.
(Interview from the unpublished book: “Para que de mi te acuerdes”).
Rosa María Fernández is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. She served as general director of the Solvisión television station (in Guantánamo), CHTV (in Havana)
Source: Cubaperiodista, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English