Meet Julia Dean | Photographer/Writer/Educator/Director of The L.A. Project

We had the good fortune of connecting with Julia Dean and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking

Not by design, but rather by devotion, I seem to take on photographic ventures that require more risks and uncertainly than not. But when I have a plan worth believing in, I carry enough conviction for an army. Lack of money has never dulled my vision. My recipe for success? Good people who believe in you. I surround myself with talented, loyal friends who help me make things happen.

In my 20s, inspired by the pioneering photographer Berenice Abbott, whom I had the good fortune of apprenticing for a year, I traveled the U.S., documenting the “last” of the general stores in small town America. I lived in tents, on friends’ couches, or in my old car. I learned to park in hotel lots, where I felt safe sleeping, plus there was always a bathroom available for use. One trip took me East from Nebraska for a month. I left with $50 cash and a Texaco credit card.

I traveled the world in my 30s, covering socially concerned stories for various relief, religious, and nonprofit groups. Besides teaching, this was my calling. I lived below the poverty line for a decade trying to make this a full-time gig, however, I had chosen the avenue in my field that paid the least. Lucikly, I love teaching as much as photography, which has helped scrape together my living over the years. My solo travels were lonely at times, and my quarters were rough along the way, but the experiences enriched my life in ways nothing else could. My memoir, Racing for Life, chronicles my journeys, from my hometown of Broken Bow, Nebraska, my year with Berenice Abbott, my many travels and moves, including L.A., home for the last 28 years.

It was three months prior to my 40th birthday when I moved to Los Angeles, to Venice Beach. I had no job and only enough money for three months’ rent, but I also had 12 years of college teaching behind me. I was determined to not only find a teaching job, but make a difference in photography in L.A.. I started teaching classes out of my loft, and eventually started my own school: The Julia Dean Photo Workshops, which 14 years later, I turned into a non-profit now called the Los Angeles Center of Photography. As of 2021, after 22-1/2 years as the executive director, I am now on to my next venture, The L.A. Project, which has brought me full circle, engulfing all that I love. Documentary photography, passionate people, and Los Angeles.

The L.A. Project acts as an umbrella organization for my Street 1, Street 2, and The Documentary Project classes. It also includes Street L.A., a collective of serious street shooters, as well as selected professionals working on projects about Los Angeles. The result of these 35 photographers will be shown during an extraordinary open-air event called Projecting L.A. on Sat., Oct. 22nd where the photographs will be projected onto a four-story building from a big parking lot. In this inaugural year, we have a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, two L.A. Times photographers and a legendary L.A. photographer, to name just a few who are taking part. Each photographer’s work is woven into a 45-minute show.

The images will be projected just after dark. This is the first event of its kind highlighting the city in which we live and love and the people in it. There will food trucks, music, and an information booth. This is an extraordinary event where you can come to see old friends and leave feeling inspired.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
To tell you more about my art is to talk about my life as a photographer, writer, and teacher. All three make up the whole. My photography led me to teaching, which turned into graduate school where I learned to write. It was then, 40 years ago, that I began my quest to cover stories around the world, in between teaching gigs. My journalistic impulse is to listen to someone’s story, then tell it for others to hear. I loved this life on the road, though I lived lean. Once, I ran out of money in Antigua, Guatemala and still had 30 days left of my trip (with a nonrefundable/unchangeable ticket), so for a week, I sat in a popular park where indigenous women sold their exquisite ware to the many tourists wandering through. Next to me, I placed a sign that read “Film for Sale.” I sold enough film for room and board until my departure date and I still had enough for myself.

I loved returning home to my students who always seemed eager to hear my stories. They learned about my passion for documentary photography, about what it’s like to travel alone as a woman, and why it is important to find something in life that fuels you, like photography has me. Photography has opened every door I’ve ever wanted in. What a gift that has been.

When I moved to Los Angeles, and started my school, my socially concerned work around the world came to a halt. I had to reinvent myself, from the documentary photographer/photojournalist that I had become. I started concentrating on street photography, first when taking people on travel workshops to major cities worldwide, then here in L.A., with my concentration on downtown. I moved downtown in 2011 to be close to the streets. I know L.A. well.

My own street and documentary work, as well as my classes can be found on my website, juliadean.com.

Optimism is my best trait, as it has led my life, through good times and bad. I am most excited when I am surrounded by people of like minds, whether students or professionals. I got to where I am today from a lot of hard work, a defined vision, an unwavering persistence, and patience, though the latter I had to learn. Accomplishing my goals has been easy in that there was no other choice, yet hard without any financial means to easily pull them off.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
How lovely it would be to take a week off in Los Angeles with a friend. My favorite places include the Venice Beach Boardwalk and Abbot Kinney, El Matador Beach north of Malibu, Hollywood Blvd. and all of downtown. For viewing DTLA from above, we could go to 71 Above, an elegant restaurant in L.A.’s tallest skyscraper or for a more hip younger crowed, my favorite place is the rooftop restaurant at the Wayfarer Hotel on Flower St.. For a special dining experience, Manuela, in the Arts District is a must. For coffee or lunch, I take friends to Pitchon, a French café on Olive, or Il Café on Broadway. I can pull up and park my motor scooter right in front.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I believe that y success is because of the belief that so many others have shown me over the years. I couldn’t have traveled across America, or around the world, or moved to L.A., or started my own school, or pulled off a big open-air extravaganza following the pandemic, if it weren’t for other people. From my family, to my mentors, to my teachers, to my friends. One must read my memoir (when it comes out) to learn of all the characters who make up my life. Success could not have come without them.

One of three people whom I feel especially thankful to this year is Ingrid Hanzer, who not only financed my school for the first 10 years, but is now also helping sponsor The L.A. Project’s first annual event. Two others, Daniel Sackheim and Joshua Stern, both with impressive TV credentials and members of our Street L.A. collective, have taken on the role of producers; which means an all-encompassing assignment on top of their full-time jobs. Our close friendship started with photography and grew out of passion and purpose.

This quote speaks to me in magnitude and sums up my life well: “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends and say my glory was I had such friends.” W.B.Yeats

Websites: www.juliadean.com, www.thelaproject.org, www.streetla.org

Instagram: juliadean-la–streetshooter

Twitter: @lastreetshooter

Image Credits
All photos taken in Los Angeles ©Julia Dean Photo of Julia Dean: ©Anderson House