Born and raised in Puerto Rico in 1960, Rafael saw first hand life's worst side, cruelty, abuse and misery during his childhood years at the hand of his father. After surviving his father’s murderous rage, Rafael struggled to get a grip on life. Only by chance and a wink of destiny did Rafael find a safe place in a camera store that had recently opened near his house. The store owner welcomed him as a son. Rafael literally abandoned his past life and embraced photography as if his life depended on it, and looking back now , it did.

Rafael Cuevas moved to New York City in 1979 in the pursuit of freedom. Once in New York, Rafael found that freedom is a slippery motherfucker who keeps changing the goalpost position. Odd jobs, odd shelters, bike messenger to darkroom printer. He eventually entered LTI in 1992, made printing room manager by 1994. He printed for Taryn Simon, Ruven Afanador, Annie Lebowitz, Craig McDean, Steven Klein, Platon. He left in 1998 to open Mackenzie Color, his own photo lab. It ran beautifully until the 2008 cataclysm happened.

After a barren spell era, he met Rachel Jun, founder of the collective darkroom Gowanus Darkroom in 2015. He helped her improve the darkroom, building the color printing room and processor. He met Nathalie Hail with whom he started Negative Space, which became PhotoLab-NYC, rental darkrooms for commercial photographer and fine art photography.

Printing for most of his life for others, he now has the facilities to experiment with his artwork.