Birthplace: Topeka, Kansas
Birth Date: 1915 Death: January 19th, 2005
Education: Formal through high school.
Subject Matter: Photojournalism, Portraits, Architectural, Landscape, primarily Western United States.
Print Medium: Color and Black-and-White.

Professional Organizations : National Press Photographers of America.

Biographical notes: courtesy of Thomas Robinson:

Allan deLay began his seventy-six year photography career in 1928, at the age of 14, doing darkroom work in a Topeka, Kansas, portrait studio. Upon moving to Portland in 1930, deLay began an after-school job at a busy wholesale photofinishing lab. There he developed and printed countless reams of drugstore snapshots. After graduating, he continued working at Jones Photo Lab until World War II broke out. In 1942, at age 26, deLay joined the army with 12 years of experience doing commercial photography in professional photo labs, a rare accomplishment for a photographer of his age.

The Army put Allan in charge of building and operating their photo lab at Cold Bay, the largest air base in Alaska, located near the western tip of the Aleutian Islands. In addition to his aerial photography, he was also correspondent for the official Army publication Yank magazine.

One of his most remarkable photos, published in nearly every daily newspaper and magazine around the world, showed the wreakage of the ship Yukon, which broke up off the Alaska coast in 1946.The ship split in half, the hull sinking, and the rest of the ship floundered on rocks at the mercy of the ocean. Within hours of the wreck deLay flew there and captured the scene of hundreds of people huddled on the deck awaiting rescue. deLay tied himself to the outside of the airplane, out the open door of a C47 with a rope below his shoulders and around his legs, swooping twenty times to within a hundred feet a the wreck to take the photos. Ironically, deLay had himself been a passenger on that very ship just a week earlier.

After the war, deLay returned to Portland and on August 3, 1947, at age 33, he began working for the Oregonian, after already completing nearly twenty successful years in professional photography. Within the first year of employment, Allan would achieve one of the most important photographs of his career.

On May 30, 1948, Vanport, Oregon's second-largest city after Portland, was devastated in a matter of minutes after a dike broke and the Columbia River submerged it under water. Allan was the first photojournalist on the scene and was the only photographer to obtain pictures of people swimming for their lives. This was the biggest disaster in the nation that year, and his pictures were published on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the world, earning him first place in the annual Associated Press spot news catagory.

In addition to his work for the Oregonian, deLay built an impressive business as a freelance photographer working for tcompanies such as Portland Gas and Coke. deLay was an idea man, and anticipated his customer's needs by taking incredible photographs when the opportunity arose, and then later offering them when they needed at picture. An example is a streetscape taken on a snowy night in downtown Portland from the top of 6th avenue hill looking down the boulevard. deLay used a lens that was three times normal focal length to compress the optical perspective, resulting in neat rows of streetlights glowing into the distance with a wealth of illuminated signs and shop lights. It was published three months later on the cover of the electric company's annual report.

1950 may be looked on as the golden year for photojournalism, because newspapers and magazines were the primary way Americans got the news, and television was too young to have a significant influence. Magazines such as Life had elevated the photo essay to a powerful media, and their photographers made it art. 1950 was the year that deLay scored first place feature in the Associated Press annual competition for his photograph, Police Rookie.

deLay went to the police station almost daily to photograph an endless parade of burglars, robbers and con artists as they were brought in. Over the years he befriended individual policemen and detectives he routinely worked with. Occasionally deLay would get a tip about a vice raid and ride along with the cops. Illegal casinos, speakeasies and worse thrived throughout the city. As Phil Stanford would later explain in his book Portland Confidential, the city was ruled by two underworld syndicates. Each group paid off particular cops and city officials, and whenever there was an underworld war, each side would try to get their cops to raid their opponents.

Allan was most proud of what he called his "famous faces." He photographed every president from Herbert Hoover to Ronald Reagan. He photographed Elvis, the Beatles, John Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and a staggering list of mid-century American personalities as they traveled through Oregon.

Allan quit his full time job at the Oregonian during the newspaper strike in 1960 in order to freelance full time, but did continue to take assignments from the Oregonian for the next decade, (which is how he would come to photograph the Beatles).

Allan was the consummate collector of history. He carried a movie camera and tape recorder in his car, as well as a Leica camera to make color slides. The many reels of tape Allan recorded have survived and are full of interviews with other photographers and events of historical significance. He photographed to the end.