Livebooks and Think Tank Agree to Sponsor D'Elia Photographic's Documentary and Wildlife Photography Workshop in Uganda NGOs to receive photographic help from July 2011 program

FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ, February 17, 2011 (Press-News.org) Website hosting and development services company Livebooks and camera bag manufacturer Think Tank have agreed to lend support the Documentary and Wildlife Photographic Workshop in Uganda organized by Arizona's D'Elia Photographic and Laura Martin Photography.

Livebooks will be providing three years of website hosting for each workshop participant, a $1,200 contribution for each student. Think Tank is contributing a percentage of all sales made through the workshop' online Think Tank link back into the workshop costs as well as an additional free bag for purchases over $50.

"We're pretty excited about these sponsorships," said Rick D'Elia, owner of D'Elia Photographic. "They show how these companies value the work that our student will do in helping the partner organizations communicate and document the important work they are doing the better the lives of Ugandans in the area."

The workshop is designed to partner individual photographers with individual organizations in central Uganda, involved in health care, education and other needs to spend a week photographing a photo essay while receiving daily feedback and instruction from D'Elia and Martin.

"I wanted to take my field experience working with organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children, USA, my experience working in Uganda, and combine it with my teaching experience in workshops and on the college level, and share it with other enthusiastic photographers. I want to give them an incredible and real world experience, while helping organizations to better communicate their messages." D'Elia said.

"The organizations need clear, powerful, photographs that will tell their stories and give a voice to people and issues that are often missed in a world congested with information. It is not unusual for some, especially the smaller organizations to not have access to that higher tier of photography," he added.

After a very concentrated week, the workshop will take a turn experiencing some of Uganda's well-populated wildlife parks for a less intense, but equally captivating week of exploration and photography.

This second half includes a trek to visit the mountain gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. a particularly special portion, not only because there are few places that we may visit the mountain gorillas, but also because the system that supports this eco-tourism provides significant economic support to this very isolated location and encourages gorilla conservation among the local population.

D'Elia has taught all levels of photography at Grand Canyon University as well as a number of one-day workshops for the general public and guest-speaking sessions at Northern Arizona University. He has worked with development and relief organizations or NGO's through out his career locally and internationally traveling to Rwanda, Somalia, Albania, Georgia, Brazil, Cambodia, Nicaragua and others on assignment for various organizations. He lived in Uganda for 11 months working with NGOs, the national independent Daily Monitor and was one of three photojournalists selected by the U.S. State Department to document the effects of the Northern Uganda Conflict on the population for an exhibition in Uganda and in the US.

The workshop will be supported by the paid tuition of the participants. While the tuition, $7,000, plus airfare it is moderately priced in comparison to other international workshops, D'Elia hopes to find sponsors that would allow them to lower that tuition.

About D'Elia Photographic
When not traveling on assignments for major NGOs, D'Elia is at work in the metro-Phoenix area working with editorial, documentary and commercial clients. He has lived in Uganda where he teamed up with two other photojournalists to produce an exhibit looking at the effects of the war in northern Uganda on its population. Sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, Uganda and the U.S. State Department, that exhibit toured Uganda and spent time in the nation's parliament before also being presented in a number of exhibits in the U.S.

D'Elia landed his first NGO assignment in 1994, working with Connecticut-based AmeriCares, photographing their rural clinic in Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide. He has completed 2-3 projects a year since then for organizations such as Save the Children (USA) and Catholic Relief Services in Mexico, Brazil, Uganda, Armenia, Cambodia and others.

From time to time, D'Elia takes advantage of previous experience as an adjunct photography teacher at Phoenix's Grand Canyon University to present talks for photography groups and students.

For more details on the workshop please visit http://photoworkshopuganda.com