The Block, Redfern

Photographer Dean Sewell’s job – his passion – is to crawl into the sorts of marginalised places we see each night on the news, to bypass the standard mainstream schlock and get the real story.

Interview by James Ellis

He moved to Russia in 1996 to cover the Chechen crisis when the rest of us were nestled at home enjoying Seinfeld in its prime, photographed battle-scarred East Timor in 1999, and faced up to the desolation left by the Tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia in 2004. Life-altering experiences, sure, but neither the bloodied earth of Russia or East Timor, or the broken lives of Aceh are as personal to Sewell as the passion he has for The Block in Redfern. We caught up with Dean Sewell to chat about The Block, his photos, and what he sets out to achieve when he picks up his camera. [Read more]