ABOUT TESSA URE
Tessa, a London-based photographer, has been taking photos since the age of fourteen when she was lent a camera at boarding school (her first photograph was published in Amateur Photographer Magazine and since then her photos have been shown on www.Holistic Hong Kong and in the Westfaelische News, Germany as well as in Psyko Terapeuten, February 2008 in Denmark). She has taken workshops in Photojournalism, Photographing Children and the Business of Photography at The Julia Dean Photo Workshops, Los Angeles. She has a Press card with the National Union of Journalists. She uses an informal, natural approach using primarily documentary-style photography in an individual way and can undertake commissions. That magic of freezing time, of seizing unique moments and preserving them as precise memories is what fascinates her about photography.
Tessa has a B.A. Honors degree in Art History with a specialization in Tribal Art and a media background having worked at Advertising Agencies, the BBC, Carlton UK Television, and CNN/Turner Broadcasting as well as on the Picture Desk at The Sunday Times and The Daily Mail 'Night & Day' magazine.
Tessa has travelled extensively in the Far East, Asia, India, Africa, the Caribbean, Australia and Latin America and was the official photographer for an international Tsunami team working in Tamil Nadu in February 2006 and 2007 (for non-profit Trauma Vidya) as well as the Logistical/Media Assistant for Moving Ventures in Bali, June/July 2006.
Trauma Vidya, a California-based non-profit organization (www.traumavidya.org) has been working in the coastal fishing villages of Tamil Nadu, India since the tsunami to bring relief to tsunami survivors for their trauma symptoms. The state of Tamil Nadu lost 10,000 lives to the tsunami. Keechanguppam, one of the villages the team works in, lost 20% of its population during the natural disaster. The team was based in the town of Karaikal and worked in the villages of Chinnangudi, Keechanguppam, Chandrapadi, Vellakoil, Perumalpettai, Kuttiyandiyur and Seruthur (Temporary Shelter).
'In February 2006 and 2007, I joined Trauma Vidya on its second and fourth trip to India as the official photographer. The photography had as its objective the documentation of the impact of the tsunami as well as the healing from it. I tried to capture the healing that occurred during the treatments the team provided, as well as capturing a renewed health and vitality that I saw in the communities at large - especially among the children.
I was interested in recording the physical moments in space and time, such as changes to the environment and landscape, or a fisherman preparing for work as concrete examples of people’s livelihood and home settings. Throughout the process, I became fascinated by these tangible moments and experiences as a record of the mood of the people and ambience of the post-tsunami landscape and community response. As a perspective upon healing, it was important to evoke the individual and collective emotional journey and the spiritual resources that the community relies on and at times of crises such as a tsunami.
My photos have been used by Trauma Vidya to educate professionals as well as non-professionals in different countries about the trauma from the tsunami and the healing possible through an approach based on inherent, self-healing mechanisms. They have been used to raise funds for further tsunami relief and to remind people of the ongoing need among tsunami survivors for further help. It is a project very dear to my heart.'
