Dean Isidro was born and raised in California, and growing up lived near Santa Cruz where his mother owned a hair salon. With each photograph, Dean Isidro continues to feel the sensation he experienced when he held his first camera and snapped his first photo—a Polaroid of his mother lying out in the California sun. While equipment has evolved, the enduring influence of working with traditional film, significantly shapes Isidro's artistic approach, pushing him to create each shot with deep resonance and excitement. His images have been published in Cosmopolitan, ELLE, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar Korea, Harper’s Bazaar Russia, Vanity Fair, New York Times, Vogue Australia, among other and he has worked with brands such as Bloomingdales, Guess, Lord & Taylor, Love Shack Fancy, Macy’s, Oscar De La Renta, Tommy Hilfiger, and more.

Dean Isidro’s proximity to the “project” of helping people encompass physical beauty - a product of his time watching his mother work at her beauty salon - molded the purposeful and idealized vision of both men and women that shine through in his photographs. His fluid pictures of women highlight the distinctly feminine beauty of his subjects, and the more angular and mechanical nature of his photographs of men in turn serve to highlight their masculine beauty. All of his editorial photos embody an energetic, dreamlike haze created by the colorfully warm tones he shoots in. The contrast between this warmth and the edge of the clothing and models he photographs creates a sense of tension, one that leaves a viewer with a feeling of anticipation and interest.

One creative subject that has been present within Isidro’s mind and photographic oeuvre since his start as a photographer is the ocean, a relic of his childhood spent in a languid Northern California beach town. His fascination with the color indigo and the motif of the sea are rooted in his memories of the water reflecting the sunlight unique to a town defined by its bodies of water. He stayed close to the water during college where he attended Pepperdine University in Malibu before moving to the opposite coast in the 1990’s, entering the completely different sphere of New York City to pursue photography. This contrast, evident in Isidro’s ability to infuse his photographs with both a languid dreaminess and confrontational edginess, falls in line with his bicoastal personal history and encompasses the energy of his work.

In contemplation of his photographs at the beach specifically, Isidro’s photos achieve a sense of democratization in connection with nature. The brevity of his photos of water, the facelessness of his models enmeshed in waves, and the dedication to depicting the energy of the water allow viewers to imagine themselves in the image and revisit a past experience laying amongst sand and sun. He continues to stay true to his dynamic worldview by photographing on both the beaches of Sag Harbor and the streets of New York City, allowing him to capture both the natural beauty of the physical world and the curated beauty of humanity.