Virgilio Ponce was born in Cuba in the early 1950's before the revolution. After a stint in the army he became an economist for Cuban state television working with the emerging film and TV industry. In 1988 he moved to France with his French wife and two small children but has continued to keep close ties with his homeland. Virgilio hoped to become a camera-man but had to content himself with being an enthusiastic amateur photographer.
He met RA founder, Jill Furmanovsky, at a concert in San Sebastian in 2004. They were both shooting pictures of the great Cuban minstrel, Silvio Rodriguez, often referred to as the 'Bob Dylan of Cuba'.
Since then Virgilio has been a regular visitor to the UK and has covered the Glastonbury Festival as a photographer for the journal 'Cuba Informacion' for many years. It was at Glastonbury in 2009 that he took his beautiful image of Leonard Cohen.
