Rick D’Elia

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Enamoured with the magic of watching a black and white image appear in a developing tray while still in high school, Rick used income from delivering the Idaho Statesman Newspaper and mowing lawns to purchase his first camera from a pawnshop in 1983.

In college, the power of the image inspired the pursuit of a Batchelor of Science in Journalism/Photojournalism degree from Northern Arizona University, earned in 1988.

Since that time, the passion to record images that matter, has taken him through a variety of local newspaper work and into a number of the world’s hot spots from Somalia and Rwanda to Albania and Gaza.

In 2003-04, Rick joined Visions in Action/Uganda for a year to document a variety of projects and issues including the 19-year-old conflict in Northern Uganda. This project, funded by the US Embassy-Kampala, resulted in a number of exhibitions to raise awareness of this tragic conflict. It is among the most important work of his 17 years as a photojournalist.

Over his career, clients have included some well-known non-governmental  organizations such as Save the Children USA, Catholic Relief Services and AmeriCares as well as smaller-grass-roots organizations like The Welcome to America Project in Phoenix and Franciscan Causes in Guaymas, Mexico.

Rick’s work has been published in major newspapers such as the London Observer and the New York Post as well as BBC Online, The Monitor (Kampala, Uganda), Calgary Herald, the Phoenix Gazette and Tribune Newpapers (Phoenix, Az).

Commercial clients have  included Shea Homes (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), Olson Communications, Resnik and Associates Public Relations, Gold Circuit, Inc., and The City of Tempe.

This conglomeration of work has inspired him to embrace a variety of arenas of photography from the work of Rick’s journalism roots and editorial portraits, the art of city and country scenes of the world, to the event and advertising imagery of the varied business community.

Photojournalism competitions have recognized his work 19 times, including three awards from the National Press Photographers Association, and one each from the Catholic Press Association and InterAction, American Council for Voluntary International Action.

Recent work has included documenting the rigors of ultra-marathon cycling, creating a series of advertising images for the Wine Studio, documenting the projects of Catholic Relief Services in Cambodia, Uganda and Rwanda and of Save the Children in Armenia, Georgia and Guatemala . His work to date has been shown twice in Phoenix’s monthly First Fridays art walk, the School of Communications gallery at Northern Arizona University, and the Gilbert Artists League annual show. Two more shows, one showcasing the work in Northern Uganda and another the various images from around the world are in the works for the near future.