He wore many hats as he also was a composer known for his use of Puerto Rican folk material, started a television production company, and was a cartoonist, poet, professor, and architectural designer.

Delano was born Yakov Ovcharov to a Jewish family in Voroshylivka [uk], Podolia Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine).

After graduating high school he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) where he studied illustration and continued his musical training.

[2] After graduating from the PAFA, Delano found it difficult to secure a career in painting, illustrating, or music, so he decided to look into a photography program he had heard about through the Federal Art Project (FAP).

The FSA was created under the Roosevelt administration under the New Deal as a means to support small farmers and help restore the communities most affected by the depression.

Many noteworthy photographers worked for the FSA until it was eliminated as "budget waste" in 1943 (including Esther Bubley, Marjory Collins, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, John Vachon, and Marion Post Wolcott), but Delano’s work continually differed greatly from his colleagues.

He came home a captain and was determined to move to Puerto Rico with his wife, Irene (a second cousin to the painter and fellow photographer Ben Shahn), a land both of them had fallen in love with.

He was meant to spend a few days there on his way to the Virgin Islands, but his trip turned in to a few months due to the US declaring war after the Pearl Harbor bombing.

[4] With his wife he worked in the Community Division of the Department of Public Education producing films, for many of which Delano composed the score.