Tamara (Dean) and Dean (Sewell) are an incredible photojournalistic duo hailing from Sydney, who are some of the most technically practiced photographers I have ever seen. While I was not too interested in their presentation, it’s hard to not pay attention when the images they are showing have so much depth and emotion; I felt bad even sending a text message.

dean sewell - aceh

Dean Sewell opened the talk with a large portfolio of images taken in Aceh, after the tsunami in 2004. He is believed to be the first, and only international photographer to be in the region at the time, and he fly in under the pretence that he was a tsunami expert, tricking government officials to let him into the area.  It is interesting to note that Sewell shot with film instead of digital, as he believed the tragic events needed to be recorded on a quality medium, and he shot in black and white in order to draw the eye to the extreme scenes that were being represented. For him, colour would have added an overwhelming dimension, and would have distracted from the reality of the events he was capturing.

tamara dean - squatters

Tamara Dean, on the other hand, shoots a lot of scenes from everyday life, and suburbia, using friends and family as the subjects of her photos. While the images she captures are of the everyday, they are far from mundane. Extraordinarily emotions shine through, with a strong focus on femininity, family, and friends. She shared with us her Squatters body of work, entering the world of squatters living in Sydney’s inner west. Again displaying a range of technically brilliant works, perfect exposures, and emotive images.

Both Tamara and Dean have works in progress that have already spanned over a decade, with Tamara documenting the girls around her, and their journey to womanhood, and Dean attempting to catch those brief moments of amazing colour in his tricolour series based in Hillsdale, where he grew up in Sydney.

Dean Sewell is a founding member of the photographic collective Oculi, later inviting Tamara Dean to join. Both now work for Fairfax, and continue their amazing work through Oculi.

For more information on Tamara and Dean, follow these links:

Tamara and Dean have extensive portfolios at – www.oculi.com

an interesing interview with Tamara just before Semi-Permanent 09 – www.fourthousand.com.au

semipermanent logo

Well, how do you wrap up an awesome couple of days at the Semipermanent Design Conference? By going home, cooking some dimsims and writing about it! yay!

First up, the announcments!

semipermanent WILL be in melbourne this year, oct 16 and 17, and i was the second person to get tickets! there will be 12 new speakers, but no announcements as to who they will be yet.

here is what the sydney sp09 program says:

For years now the lovely people of Melbourne have been pleading with us to host a Semi-Permanent even in their sexy city. We finally cracked and are pleased to announce the Semi-Permanent 2009 Melbourne event.

We’ll see you down there

Melbourne Semi-Permanent 2009 – 16 & 17 October 2009

melbourne convention and exhibition centre (southbank, melbourne)

speakers TBC (12 different speakers to sydney event)

so there you have it, i havent seen anything on the net about this yet, so i consider this to be an if forever exists exclusive!!! nothing is even on the semipermanent site as yet, but i would be staying tuned to get tickets before they sell out, cos if you guys wanted it that bad down there, its sure to sell out! (plus, you wanna sit next to me dont you? considering i already have tickets)

so thats the exciting announcement! now i just want to tell you, that starting monday we are going to be having profiles on each of the 13 people who spoke at this years sydney semipermanent, featuring works, information and exclusive parts of their presentations. as a bonus, i will include a scan of my raw notes for each presenter, so you can extract your own information if you want. that’s 13 amazingly talented people to be profiled over the coming weeks.

the lineup is as follows:

1. Timba Smits, of wooden toy magazine
2. Kris Moyes, film production
3. Ian Francins, mixed media artist
4. Tamara Dean, photographer
5. Dean Sewell, photographer
6. Danny Yount, film production/direction
7. Droga 5 (Ben Nott), creative advertising agency
8. XYZ Studios (Tim Kentley), animation studio
9. Kate Gibb, screenprinter/illustrator
10. Wired Magazine (Scott Dadich), technology/innovation publication
11. Daniela Federici, photographer
12. Ron English, billboard liberator
13. Digital Domain (Vernon Wilbert), digital production

it’s a massive lineup of some of the most creative people in the business, all of the wowed me at the event, and i hope they inspire you as well! This starts on monday!

I would like to take this opportunity to say thankyouthankyouthankyou to the event organisers – Andrew Johnstone and Murray Bell! without you guys, this wouldnt have happened! keep up the awesome work, and see you at the melbourne show!

dont forget, subscribe to the right to stay up to date with all the awesome on if forever exists.

and dont forget to check the semipermanent website for info on the brisbane, perth and auckland shows, as well as the freshly announced melbourne show!

www.semipermanent.com

peace

qwux