CONVOKE What was your introduction to photography and visual art? When/how did you start practicing and why? What were the artistic communities that you were initially drawn to?
DEAN My initial introduction to photography was through punk publications like Flipside and Maximum Rock N Roll in the 80’s. I loved punk (still do) and the photography in those publications inspired me to take my own photos at the shows in high school. I was also coming out to myself at that time and was also going to Circus of Books and A Different Light Bookstores when they had locations in both West Hollywood and Silverlake. A Different Light had an amazing art/photography book section and that’s where I discovered photographers like Duane Michaels, Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, Larry Clark and Joel Peter-Witkin. It blew my mind to see that gay men (Michaels, Weber, Ritts) could have books published of their work. Eventually I got a jobs at the MOCA bookstore and The Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies (LACPS) and those jobs opened my eyes to even more possibilities of what the medium of photography can do.
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