Diego Ceja (pronounced se’ hah) has had a passion for landscape photography since the age of 11 when his father bought him his first 35mm camera. That year he took 2nd place in Kodak’s national vacation photography in the juvenile category. He became a professional photographer at the age of 18, first as an apprentice wedding photographer for a studio in St. Louis, Mo., then as a weekend wedding photographer for the studio for 4 years.

He holds a degree in Earth and Planetary Science from Washington University in St. Louis. It was while doing research on the salt domes in Utah that he became aware of the spiritual beauty of the desert. He was a wedding photographer and then a product and commercial photographer but returned to his calling as a fine art landscape photographer.

Diego Ceja has had no formal art schooling, but considers himself a student of Ansel Adams. Having read every text written by Adams, it was from him that he learned the art and science of tonal control in the black and white negative. Ceja’s style differs from Adams in that Adams was fanatical about shadow detail, where as Ceja prefers high contrast and an emphasis on detail in highlights. The person who most influenced Ceja’s photography is Eddie Ephraums of England, Author of Creative Elements and Gradient Light. It was from him that he learned the art of directing light in the final print to create Drama.

In the summer of 1984 he left a career in Dallas Texas to move to Mexico City to learn the culture there and to produce his first portfolio. It was in Mexico that he learned how to create dramatic high contrast landscape images using large-format infrared and black and white astronomy film. In Mexico he produced his first fine-art portfolio, “Imagenes Teotihuacan” .Many of his pieces hang in the homes of collectors in Mexico City.

In 1985 Diego Ceja moved to Arizona to produce his second portfolio, “The Infrared Desert”. Photography is from Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and California. The portfolio is still expanding.

In 2003 “The Infrared Desert” was described by both Phoenix Magazine and the Arizona Republic as “stunning”. His work has also been seen on Channel 3 News and AZ Family.