Tasmanian artist, Suellen Saidee Cook first picked up a camera when she was a young child growing up in Hobart. Despite exploring photography at art school in the early 1990s, Cook pursued PhD studies in marine biology.
During a research expedition into the Southern Ocean, the isolation and reality of being insignificant in the vastness awoke a previously untapped creative reservoir in her. On her return, she bought her first DSLR camera.
Later, she started taking an interest in composite imagery that she was seeing on the Internet. “I was in absolute awe of what could be done with photographs in Photoshop, and I became hooked,” she says. Cook taught herself Photoshop and found her true creative passion.
Cook’s style is mysterious, enchanting, whimsical and emotive, with threads of melancholy inviting feelings of having been left outside the boundaries of the image. She seeks to make the viewer of her images an observer who is projecting their own emotional response into the image, creating a story of what they see and feel.
Winner of the International Loupe Awards in 2012, Cook has twice won the Creative Flair category in the Better Photography Magazine, ‘Photograph of the Year Award’. She has also been recognised in the US International Photography Awards and the French Digital Tour. Cook has also worked with a local author to produce illustrations for a children’s book, and participated in joint exhibitions in Hobart. Recently, she was named 2015 AIPP Tasmanian EPSON Professional Photographer of the Year.
Currently, Cook is working on a series of images exploring texture and nature themes to fulfil a desire to stage her first solo exhibition. “Image making is essential for my wellbeing,” she says. “It is the oxygen, food and water for my soul.”
www.suellensaideephotography.com.au