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Dean Sewell / Oculi Dean Sewell, born in 1971 grew up in Sydney where he began his career working as a news photographer for the Sydney Morning Herald. In 2005 Sewell was awarded 1st Prize, Spot News Stories category of the World Press Photo Awards for his work on the Tsunami aftermath in Aceh, Indonesia. In 2002 and 2000 Sewell won World Press Photo awards for his work on the Australian Bushfires and East Timor respectively. His series on "The Block" in Aboriginal Redfern and coverage of the Sydney Bushfire Crisis of 2001 were showcased at the prestigious Visa Pour L'Image Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France. In 2001 Sewell co-founded the Australian Photographic Collective ‘Oculi’. Annually from 2000-2005 Sewell's work was screened at "Reportage"- Australia's Leading Festival of Photojournalism. Sewell was awarded Australian Press Photographer of the Year in 1998 and 1994. In 1999 he covered the lead-up to the East Timor elections and its violent aftermath. In 1996 Sewell was based in Moscow where he covered the Russian federal elections, the Chechen war and other social issues. Sewell’s work is regularly exhibited in leading Australian and International Galleries and his works are held in private collections. In 2005 and 2008, Sewell was awarded an “Artist Residency” by Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in the remote historical gold-mining village of Hill End in NSW, Australia. 
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Portfolio
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Portraits
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Stories
 | Australia, A Dry Argument (2009) Years of prolonged drought combined with over regulation and water allocation has left the Murray/Darling basin - Australia's most important series of rivers, water courses and wetlands in a state of crisis. Farmers in some areas have used the downturn in production to further clear native vegetation in preparation for better times ahead. Irrigators have been delivered zero water allocation by governments as rivers run dry, dams stagnate at unprecedented lows and majestic gum trees, reliant on food cycles begin to die. Soil erosion has depleted native grasses forcing graziers to hand-feed livestock and as ground water has moved towards the surface increasing salinity levels along... |
 | Bushfires aftermath in Australia (2009) Less than a month after the terrible bushfires that reduce to ashes the forests of the state of Victoria, Australia realized the importance of the disaster.
Australian photographer Dean Sewell takes pictures of his own country’s landscape…But these stories offer us paradoxically a detached look, almost absent on what it is represented. The fury of the flame seems to have redrawn a crepuscular landscape that its own inhabitant can’t recognize. |
 | Kalgoorlie gold mines, Australia (2007) Facing the huge demand from India and China for gold and nickel, the mining companies are rushing towards Western Australia, in Kalgoorlie. The city has turned back into the eldorado it already used to be a century ago. Except for the Aborigines. |
Awards
2009 - Moran Contemporary Photography Prize
2007 - 3rd Place in the 'Australia's Top Photographers ATP07', 'Photojournalism' category
2007 - Runner-Up in the 'Australia's Top Photographers ATP07', 'Editorial' category
2007 - Australian Centre For Photography ‘Head On’ photographic portrait prize finalist.
2006 - 1st Place in the 'Australia's Top Photographers ATP06', 'Photojournalism' category
2005 - 1st Place – Spot News Stories Category – World Press Photo Awards for coverage of the Tsunami Aftermath in Aceh
2002 - 3rd Place – Nature and the Environment, Stories – World Press Photo Awards for coverage of Sydney’s Black Christmas Bushfires
2001 - Highly commended for work on the “Cave Clan” in the '3rd Leica/CCP Documentary Photography Award'
2000 - 2nd Place – People in the News – Stories, World Press Photo Awards for coverage of East Timor