ABOUT JULIA DEAN

Julia Dean is a photographer, educator, writer, and founder and former executive director of the Los Angeles Center of Photography for 22 years. She is currently the director of The L.A. Project, a group of street, documentary, and news photographers whose mission is to tell the real story of the streets of L.A.

Collaborative projects with talented photographers is Julia’s passion. In the 1990s, she raised money to send six photographers around the world to document stories about child labor. This work resulted in two trips to the Capitol and a lot of press. Her current collaboration is through The L.A. Project.

Julia began her career as an apprentice to pioneering photographer Berenice Abbott. Later, Julia was a photo editor for the Associated Press in New York.She has traveled to more than 45 countries while freelancing for numerous relief groups and magazines. Her extensive teaching experience includes 40 years at various colleges, universities and educational institutions including the University of Nebraska, Los Angeles Valley College, Los Angeles Southwest College, Santa Monica College, the Santa Fe Workshops, the Maine Photographic Workshops, Oxford University, the Los Angeles Center of Photography, and the Leica Akademie.

For two decades, Julia concentrated on street photography around the world. For the past 13 years, street shooting in downtown Los Angeles has been her primary focus. She created and co-directs (with Daniel Sackheim) a street collective called Street L.A., which consists of a group of serious photographers who shoot weekly. Julia's work has been published in many magazines, blogs, and books.

Julia received a Bachelor of Science degree in photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Master of Arts degree in journalism at the University of Nebraska, and is the author/photographer of the award-winning children’s book, A Year on Monhegan Island, published by Houghton Mifflin Co.