Born 1914, Voroshilovka, Ukraine
Died 1997, San Juan, Puerto Rico

In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Delano immigrated with his family to the United States in 1923, eventually settling in Philadelphia. There, he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1928–32), aiming to become a magazine illustrator but also pursing an interest in music at the Settlement Music School. In the late 1930s he joined the Federal Art Project (FAP) as a photographer, documenting illicit coal mining in Schuylkill, Pennsylvania. In 1940–43 he photographed for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), traveling around the United States to document living and working conditions in areas still not recovered from the Great Depression. When the Office of War Information (OWI) was established in 1942, he visited and photographed air force bases as they prepared for action overseas, and traveled around the country to photograph the American freight rail system. During World War II he served in the Air Transport Command, Army Corps of Engineers, becoming captain. Delano joined the Photo League in November 1947, although by that time he had settled in Puerto Rico, where he made films under the aegis of the Department of Public Education there. In 1951 he directed the classic neorealist film Los Peloteros, about poor children in rural Puerto Rico who form a baseball team. Delano was a composer as well as still and film photographer, often scoring his own films.