Family snap

By Kris Herbert, November 19, 2007 @ 2:33 pm

Photographer of the Year Dean MacKenzie keeps it all in the family

This intimate portrait of his mother and brother helped Dean MacKenzie win the coveted Photographer of the Year title at this year’s Epson/NZIPP Iris Professional Photography Awards. It took top gong in the people category, just one of nine awards MacKenzie took home on the night.

Using Photoshop as his darkroom, MacKenzie manipulates his images until they take on a sense of hyperrealism that looks more like oil paintings than photographs.

“I like slightly oversaturated, contrasty images that are darker in tone, because I think that creates more mood and atmosphere. It’s easy to get a nice portrait but the tricky thing is to turn that into something with more layers and flavour. It’s still reality but it’s shot in a way that it feels more cinematic and stylised. This means spending more time setting up and thinking about the light. It’s about having a clear idea of what you want and then executing that idea.”

MacKenzie has followed a steep learning curve from rock climbing bum to rock climbing photographer to Photographer of the Year. Now aged 37, he discovered photography in his late 20s, as a traveller. He bought a small SLR camera, struggled through reading the manual, and taught himself the basics of how a camera manages light.

Early assignments included photographing skiing and rock climbing overseas for Patagonia New Zealand. MacKenzie came home to Christchurch in 1999 and started his own photography business just three years ago.

And this winning shot? “I wanted to show my brother as my mum’s guardian because he does look after her a lot,” the photographer says. “His stance is slightly aggressive but not angry. It’s like he’s casing you out—if you said the right thing he would welcome you in, but he’s on guard.”