Presenting: John Dowding – A Private Lesson in Photography from a True Master

John Dowding and I first met a few days ago at Spiaggia Trattoria where I was doing an interview with the owner, Mary Lee. Right in the restaurant she connected me with John who was quietly enjoying a plate of mussels. I sat down with John for about twenty minutes, and as we talked I realized we had a lot in common: a passion for visual arts, photography and travel. John invited me to call him to arrange a visit at his studio another day so he would be able to show me his work.

John Dowding

John Dowding has more than 50 years of arts teaching experience. After taking a degree in fine arts and history at McMaster University in Hamilton, John taught at various high schools in southern Ontario and was the head of the art department at Lorne Park Secondary School in Mississauga from 1969 to 1986, the high school that famous Canadian Olympians Silken Laumann and John Wood graduated from. From 1993 to 1995 he completed a degree in Photographic Arts at Ryerson University, the first year Ryerson had received its official designation as a university.

Photography has been John Dowding’s passion for many years now. During the last five years he has started to discover Cuba, and spent several weeks every winter in this fascinating country. In just a few days (February 2) John will be leaving for Cuba again: to run the “Cuba Now and Then” Photography Workshop and Tour. This ten-day tour will take participants to Havana where they will spend three days taking photos of various historic parts of the city including the Cementario Colon where the students will be practicing infrared photography.

From there the group will move on to the French colonial city of Cienfuegos, then to historic Trinidad de Cuba where they will spend two-and-a-half days. Before returning to Havana, the group will also spend two days in Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city on the island and a former capital of the country. Opportunities will exist to photograph architecture, landscapes and special events such as flamenco and dance shows.

John usually focusses on architectural photography, and also uses special equipment such as infrared film and pinhole cameras to achieve special effects which he teaches to his workshop participants. One of his favourite photos of Havana was of a group of school-age boys who were swimming in the ocean just off Havana’s Malecon. When they came out of the water they were still looking at each other, an image that reminded John of a frieze in a Greek drama.

Over the last few years, John Dowding has formed an intense connection to Cuba, and he said he wanted to “get there before the Americans”. When he arrived in Havana for the first time, he couldn’t believe his eyes, the fascination and attraction were instant. John and I discussed Havana, a city we both know well. To explore the city, John hired a team of local carriage drivers, who were actually a doctor and a nurse. I had spent some time in Havana myself a couple of years ago, to study Spanish at the University of Havana. Just like John, I learned very quickly that the tourism trade is much more lucrative for the locals than practicing their professions. Working as a waiter, tour guide or taxi driver allows Cubans to make in one day a multiple of their usual monthly wages of about $8 to $25 (per month!).

So this team of medical professionals driving a horse carriage for tourists became his tour guides and introduced him to one of the most captivating cities in the New World. The fascination has never left and John has been to Havana, which he calls “a city in a time warp”, several times over the last few years. He will run another photo tour to Cuba from April 6 to 15. Through the same company (Cuba Si Tours) John will take another group of photo enthusiasts to Tuscany later this year, an area to which John refers as one of the cradles of Western civilization, certainly as far as art history is concerned.

After this inspiring conversation I left John to finish his mussels and resolved to see him a few days later at his private studio in order to catch him before his departure for Cuba. So today after my interview with Steve and Paul, the owners of Accommodate The Soul B&B, I headed over to John Dowding’s residence on a quiet historic side street in the Beach.

John’s studio is currently undergoing reconstruction, so some of his images were packed away. But I was able to view several samples of his unique artwork, including some examples of his “PreCambrian” photo series. John explained that he spent some time in a friend’s cottage on Georgian Bay, and as he was feeding the fish he discovered beautifully coloured striated rocks that make up the Canadian shield. Also referred to as the Pre-Cambrian Shield, this ancient geological formation is the earth’s largest area of exposed 'shield' rock. The rock formations date back to the Precambrian Era, between 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, long before living creatures ever appeared on this planet. The ancient rocks contain beautifully coloured, striped and twisted formations.

Another series of pictures relates to John’s explorations of Cuba. In addition to standard digital and conventional photography, John uses infrared film, particularly in environments that already have a somewhat surreal ambience to them, for example cemeteries. In addition, John uses a unique piece of photographic equipment: a pinhole camera. He showed me two samples of this type of equipment – pinhole cameras essentially consist of a simple wooden box with no lens. The shutter is essentially a hole in the box that needs to be exposed manually by opening and closing a cover above the hole. Inside the box is a roll of 120 film. John explained that one of his pinhole cameras was made in Hong Kong of mahogany and brass. He took one with him on his first trip to Havana in 2002, and it has become his favourite piece of equipment ever since.

John demonstrates the pinhole camera

John explained that exposure has to be calculated manually using certain formulas. Double exposures are easily created, which results in surreal and often bizarre special effects. Early versions of pinhole cameras were described by Aristotle in 300 B.C. Pinhole cameras share certain characteristics with the “camera lucida”, an optical device that was reportedly used by artists such as Vermeer and Frans Hals to accurately depict reality. According to John, these painters were able to capture fleeting expressions such as smiles and laughter, a visual feat that only became feasible as a result of using the camera lucida.

The camera lucida optically superimposes the object being viewed onto the drawing surface, even allowing the artist to trace the outlines of the objects to be painted. As a result, these painters never used sketches for their paintings, they painted directly on a canvas - "a la prima", aided by the help of the camera lucida that would project the image onto their canvas.

John also showed me a book entitled “Secret Knowledge – Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters”, where the author, David Hockney, demonstrates that certain optical devices were used as early as 1425 by classical painters in order to compose images. The pinhole camera and camera lucida are related to the “camera obscura”, an optical device used in drawing, and one of the forerunners of the photographic camera. Some camerae obscurae have been built as tourist attractions, often taking the shape of a large room-sized chamber inside a high building so that a 360 degree panorama of the outside world is projected onto a horizontal surface through a rotating lens. One of the few such camerae obscurae is located in Havana, Cuba.

John shows me the book "Secret Knowledge - The Lost Techniques of the Old Masters"

John added that he regularly teaches a course called “Photo Impressionism” at the Haliburton School of the Arts. He explained that the week-long course is generally held in July, and among other places, he takes his students down to a local river, where kayakers are using a “playhole”, a section with a deep hole carved out of the stream base, allowing them to practice difficult manoeuvres in the river. The photography students get to sit on the rocks beside the river, really close to the kayakers and take interesting shots of the water and the motion. There is not even a need for a telephoto lens.

As I had to head off to my next interview with another creative person, Lucille Crighton, one of Canada’s foremost textile artists I thanked John for his time and the information he had shared with me. I appreciated this exposure to photographic techniques and optical devices, and I could tell John Dowding is a patient knowledgeable teacher who truly enjoys sharing his knowledge.

I secretly wished that I could join John on his photographic tour through Cuba (or Tuscany for that matter). Maybe one day in the future…

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