Photography has taken John Dean all over the world
John Dean has been pulled out of lines in the airport to be questioned and scrutinized.
His passport is filled with exotic locations including his trip to Egypt just two months after 9/11 which raised eyebrows. “Mr. Dean, why do you travel so much?” “I take pictures,” he replied.
Dean has been taking pictures for more than 50 years. He grew up in Otis Orchards and went to Whitworth University. After he graduated, he worked in the grocery store his parents owned and while he swept, a customer suggested he get a hobby. He got a camera and became a member of the Spokane Valley Camera Club in 1958.
Dean worked in social services for 27 years, all the while learning to master the art of photography. He learned by entering competitions, being critiqued and going on field trips. He participated in many competitions locally and internationally and eventually became a judge. Dean joined the Photographic Society of America in 1969. In both organizations, he has played important roles.
His Spokane Valley home is decorated with his photographs taken in Kenya, South Africa, Steptoe Butte, the Olympics and the Tetons. He has captured wild horses running in Oregon, waves at Cape Kiwanda and rice fields in China and Patagonia. His favorite collections include “Alaska’s Denali National Park” and “The Brown Bears of Katmai.”
He compiles his work into slide shows which he presents to various photographic groups, nursing homes and retirement homes, community churches and more. His motivation is to “share his travel opportunities with others.”
“It is a privilege for me to be able to see many countries of the world but to selfishly just enjoy that privilege is not me. I want to share the colors, the scenes, the excitement of beautiful landscapes – images of the world and its peoples with my peers but also with other groups. My photography is my passion, the sharing of it is the frosting on my cake,” he said.
On every excursion, he “mentally shoots his images on a trip with an eye to know how each one will fit into a finished show to share.” The work space/office in his home is a large area where one wall has been covered by a mural of Africa. There are computers, slide projectors, and a large cozy couch facing a pull down screen. He adds music to the presentations to set the right mood for his audiences.
The Photographic Society of America has invited him to present shows at its international conferences and he is scheduled to show his “Springtime in Patagonia” production in Portland at the September 2008 conference. Chapters of PSA have also invited him to present shows in California and Oregon as well as locally. He will be going to China in February to photograph more rice fields and he will be judging a show in Shanghai.
Though people are rarely his subject matters, they are becoming more interesting to him. He returned from India in November with memories of women in saris building roads and nomads preparing camels. Perhaps he will name a future production “Desert Villages in India.”
Dean is moved by the world around him and he hopes to move others. “Photographic art is a religious experience for me … seeing work by the greatest architect/artist of all time,” he said.