Scott Strazzante

Class of 1986: Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer

From dynamic sports photos, to riveting new images, to compelling long-term picture stories, Scott Angelo Strazzante’s images have shared his unique vision of major events and everyday life.

As a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle and Chicago Tribune, a book author and an independent photographer with a popular Instagram account, Strazzante has earned virtually every major honor in photojournalism.

He was born March 11, 1964, in Chicago and grew up on the South Side. After several on-campus visits to his older sister, Kathleen Strazzante Gachino, Class of 1984, “I fell in love with the school and its smalltown feel,” Strazzante said. “After visiting Ripon, I felt that I would feel lost at a larger university. Ripon was the perfect fit for me.”

At Ripon, he majored in business management and art, and took classes in sociology, philosophy, science, history, Spanish and English, which “gave me insight into all aspects of daily life,” he said. “My liberal arts education laid the foundation for my photojournalism career.”

However, he added, “The most important part of my Ripon education was outside the classroom. I entered Ripon as a shy, timid teenager, but soon found my people and grew more confident and socially adept.”

He got his start in photography taking photos of local Chicago sports teams. “During my junior year (at Ripon), I came across the gallery of work by a Chicago Tribune photographer at the time, Paul Gero, and it was a lightning moment for me.

“I walked into this gallery, saw his work — a lot of which was from the neighborhood where I grew up in Chicago — and I was like, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I finished off college with an art major to go with my business major, and somehow my tiny hometown newspaper, The Daily Calumet, hired me as a part-time photographer.”

He said he grew to realize there was more to photography than just sports. “I came to love other aspects of photojournalism including news coverage and long-term photo stories.”

He has covered the Super Bowl, the World Series and several Olympic Games, but also has produced photo columns chronicling the everyday triumphs and struggles of the high school athlete; and street photography using an iPhone that he displays on a popular Instagram channel.

He has served as president of the Illinois Press Photographer Association and Region 5 director and associate director of the National Press Photographers Association.

“Common Ground” is his personal project and a photographic journal of land and community. The 27-year effort was published by National Geographic and featured in Mother Jones, New York Times’ Lens Blog and on CBS Sunday morning. It was made into a video by MediaStorm and won Best of Photojournalism’s Best Feature Video and POYi’s (Pictures of the Year International) Community Awareness Award.

His other books are “Shooting from the Hip” and “Baseball’s Last Dive Bar.”

His other myriad awards include an unprecedented 11 wins as Illinois Photographer of the Year, National Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2000 and runner-up in 2007, and a collaborative Pulitzer Prize with the Chicago Tribune staff for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. He was named Illinois Journalist of the Year in 2008, only the second time in its 40-year history that the Northern Illinois University award went to a photojournalist; and in 2025 he was named Best of Photojournalism’s Sports Photojournalist of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association.

Ripon College presented him with an Outstanding Young Alumni award in 1996 and a Distinguished Alumni Citation in 2016.

After four decades in newspaper journalism, including 13 years with the Chicago Tribune and 11 years with the San Francisco Chronicle, Strazzante shot his final staff assignment at Super Bowl LX on Feb. 8, 2026. Forty years after beginning his career as a daily newspaper photographer, he now has relocated to Long Beach, California, and is beginning his next chapter of his photographic journey as a freelance photographer.

“To this day, I still am fascinated by humans and human nature,” Strazzante said. “I once heard a famous photographer say that a great photojournalist is 1/3rd artist, 1/3rd detective and 1/3rd social worker. I couldn’t agree more. I hope that my photography has not only informed and inspired, but, also, entertained.”