After his graduation in 1970, he was designated as a conscientious objector by the local draft board and was assigned to work as a guard and janitor at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, and its museum of photography.
[1] While working on his thesis for his MFA degree in the 1970s Deal started teaching at the University of California, Riverside, where he helped establish the UCR/California Museum of Photography.
Subdividing the Inland Basin featured suburban areas east of Los Angeles and Beach Cities focused on Pacific Ocean communities in Southern California.
[1] West and West: Reimagining the Great Plains featured photographs of the grid pattern of much of the Midwestern United States and was on exhibit at the University of Arizona's Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona after opening at the Rhode Island School of Design and being presented at New York City's Robert Mann Gallery.
[3] A ten-year resident of Providence, Rhode Island, Deal died at a hospice there due to bladder cancer at age 62 on June 18, 2010.