Dean Sewell’s “drive by shooting” at Katoomba has earned him a semi finalist berth in the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize.
The recent Katoomba resident – he moved up earlier this year – said he had “only just moved in” when he had the chance to capture his first Mountains snow event travelling along Lurline Street in June.
“I had experience of photographing snow in Russia but not much here. I jumped in my car to see what I could photograph. There was this beautiful early 60s model Volkswagon in a traffic jam and this guy’s wipers obviously weren’t working.
“I just grabbed my camera and did this drive-by shooting,” he told the Gazette laughing.
He had only seconds to prepare.
“Composition is second nature to a decent working photographer. I had my camera in my lap, I always have a camera,” he added.
“I had a vintage car once and nothing worked on it and I could really empathise with him [the driver] trying to keep an eye on the road and clear the window, the poor bugger.”
“I only recently realised it was my neighbour Greg in the car – I didn’t recognise him with his beanie and didn’t know the car.”
He has titled the work Broken Wipers and that random moment captured on a Canon camera could see him win the most valuable photography prize in Australia which offers the winner a handsome $50,000.
There are 152 semi-finalists in the 2016 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize. Sewell, 44, is an ex-Sydney Morning Herald photographer and now works as a professional freelance photographer.
Sewell previously won the Moran prize in 2009 and 2010 for an outback shot [A Dry Argument] and another of couples on a Sydney ferry [Cockatoo Is. Ferry].
He has been taking photos since a Year 11 photography course, when he also started taking pictures while following his unionist Dad around to numerous protests. A cadetship at the Herald fine-tuned his skills.
“This photo’s deceptively monochrome in nature,” he said.
“I always try to select images that are a bit different. In Australia there’s an over-representation of coastal images … you don’t see a lot of snow images [from towns].”
The Moran Arts Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit organisation. The finalists will be announced on October 11 and the winner on October 26. The Moran Prizes exhibition opens to the public the following day and runs through to early 2017.
The prize, which asks photographers to interpret contemporary Australian life with an observational approach, is being judged by photographic historian Alan Davies and Director of Photography at Britain's Sunday Times Magazine, Jon Jones.
Jones said a wide variety of engaging images and subjects from portraiture, landscape and documentary made it a difficult but enjoyable selection process, adding that the entries cast Australia as a "vibrant multicultural society that combines humour and adventure with a love of the great outdoors".
- with Ella Rubeli