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The people with Dalton, from clockwise from upper right:
Arden Eversmeyer
Annise Parker
Tammi Wallace & Clay Allen
Fran Watson & Jerry Simoneaux
Kennedy Loftin
Dalton as 2008 Grand Marshal
JD Doyle, circa 1994
President Clinton
Randall Whitmore, Jerry Simoneaux, Stephen Dunlap
Greg Jeu, Eddie Robinson, Joanna Jackson
Becca Keo
Dina Jacobs
Sylvester Turner
Alister Blucker, Monica Roberts, Lou Weaver
center, Nancy Pelosi

 

Dalton DeHart

Our Community Photographer

Dalton DeHart grew up in the small East Texas community of Buna. He entered Sam Houston State University after graduation from Buna High School and soon began to document campus life with a small Kodak Instamatic camera. That is when photography became a part of his life. His undergraduate days, his tour of duty in the U.S. Army, and his postgraduate studies were all documented on film.
He began teaching at San Jacinto College Central in Pasadena, Texas in 1983, and in 1986, he became a permanent professor of English. In 1989 he became Chairman of the Language Skills Department, and in 2006 he was chosen as Teacher of the Year on the Central campus. That same year he was a recipient of the Minnie Stevens Piper Professorship award, one of the highest honors bestowed for teaching excellence.

DeHart's first photography assignments came from schools in Deer Park and Pasadena, where he photographed many sporting events. In 1989, two of his teaching colleagues invited him to join the Executive and Professional Association of Houston (EPAH), where he immediately began taking photographs for the association newsletter. Before long, he was asked to photograph other LGBTQ events and fundraisers, especially for nonprofit groups dealing with the AIDS crisis. He was privileged to capture the faces of people suffering with AIDS as part of his work with local charitable groups. His calendar was soon filled with all kinds of assignments in and around Houston.

By 2004, when DeHart began using digital cameras, he had already shot 12,595 rolls of film, and over 10 thousand of which were from LGBTQ events. Sylvester Turner, the sixth Houston mayor that DeHart photographed, and former mayor Annise Parker were the subjects of hundreds of his photos.

His event photography has filled the pages of local publications including the Houston Voice, This Week in Texas, and OutSmart magazine, and in 2008 he was named Male Grand Marshal for Houston's Pride parade. DeHart's passion for preserving LGBTQ history through photography is what led him to establish the nonprofit Dalton DeHart Photographic Foundation in 2015. In 2021 he received the Montrose Center's Community Vision Award. And in 2022 he received the Pride in Business Community Legacy Award, from the Greater Houston LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce. He hopes that people see through his images the passion he has for taking those photos.

          

More info on Dalton on this site
His historic archive can be viewed and downloaded at
Dalton DeHart.com