He was born in Tunja on April 3, 1942. During his student days he was dedicated to promoting and distributing films for the film forums of the schools in that city, wrote for the school newspaper and worked as an announcer and commentator on radio programs. When he finished high school in 1959, he arrived in Bogota and joined Radio Sutatenza as producer and announcer of a musical program. In 1960 he traveled to New York and worked as a photographer for several magazines and in September of the same year, he entered New York University to study Mass Communications for two years.