Newspapers are hotbeds of complaint. Whingeing is the white noise of journalism. Always in the ranks are those complaining that life on the paper is standing in the way of the work they really want to do: painting, writing novels, exploring the Zeitgeist, taking photographs that astonish the world. These arias to thwarted ambition don’t often lead anywhere. The novels aren’t written. The photographs aren’t taken.Work goes on to the hugely satisfying rhythm of the paper.

Photographers complain the most. Optimism is not their default setting. Perhaps among themselves they radiate skittish confidence but to reporters they present as the most put-upon members of the human race.  Disappointment is their daily bread. They pack their cameras every morning and head out into the streets in a mood of resigned despair. The fine pictures they bring back are passed off as accidents. They mask their pride and grumble.

As the internet was opening up a decade ago, a group of these malcontents decided to take action. “We found ourselves at the precipice of a new world,” Dean Sewell says. “Wewere all born out of newspapers.Manywere departing the newspaper scene. Newspapers weren’t maturing with us.” So this little group of press photographers banded together to make their presence felt on the net. “We were aiming somewhere between photojournalism and art,” Sewell says. They decided very deliberately not to set up an agency. “We saw ourselves as amovement. We were not driven by commerce.”

Finding a name was agony. Defining themselves as The Australian this or that didn’t seem right. All the best animals and insects were taken. “Platypus had gone and redback was already the name of boots or bloody something,” Sewell recalls. When “Oculi” was first suggested, no one in the group had any idea what it meant. They grabbed it once they did: something to do with eyes. “It might be lost on Australians but it resonated in Europe.”

The Oculi website was up and running by late 2000.

The group grew, shrank and grew again. Of the 10 current members, all but two are products of the two

Australian media conglomerates, Fairfax and Murdoch. Most still work in newsrooms. They serve Oculi out of hours, on leave, part time.  Prizes rained down on them early. Institutions began to exhibit and collect their work. A few members published books. More are on the way.No year seems to go by without someone on the Oculi list being named somewhere in some category as Photographer of the Year. They’ve had a lot of attention.

Now they have decided to celebrate their first decade in a rather old-fashioned way in this digital age, by publishing a book. The Oculi website continues to operate as a storehouse of fine work replenished monthly. The book will be a permanent record; somewhere to see these extraordinary pictures where they are at their best – not on the screen but the page.