SPOTLIGHT - JOHN DOWNING 1940 - 2020
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Knowing the inevitable was coming does still not soften the blow of losing a good friend and colleague. John Downing, former Chief Photographer of the Express, was even throughout ‘lockdown’ his usual cheerful self, joking and cajoling by text, right up until his death last week at the age of 79.
Born in 1940, John was one of 4 brothers growing up in Llanelli, South Wales during the war. His interest in photography started at 13, when he watched a friend’s brother do some enlarging and printing in a darkroom - “it was like magic” he said “I was hooked”. He began his career in London at the Daily Mail, becoming an apprentice photographic printer between 1956-61, where he gained an appreciation for tone, light and exposure that never left him. The next year, John managed to get occasional night shifts at the Daily Express, just over the road from the Mail in Fleet Street. The Daily Express at the time sold over four and a half million copies daily and was the biggest selling paper in Fleet Street.
John said he knew he had to start doing “all the crap” first. The night shifts increased and he started to get the coveted day shifts. “When I started, the competition at the Daily Express was steep: they had 64 staff photographers and 14 freelancers, of which I was the lowliest” said John. “You had to try to be the best at what you did, there was no sharing of negatives back then” With his knowledge of darkroom and developing techniques, he used to slightly overexpose his film and underdevelop it to give a more tonal range to his negatives in order to make an outstanding print he could hand to the Picture Editor and hopefully persuade him that it should go in the paper.
John spent the next few years covering the varied assignments that press photographers do every day, from photographing paupers to Prime Ministers. One of John’s favourite pictures, patients being rescued by Police from flooding in Surrey came in 1968 and by the beginning of the 1970’s, John’s career had quite literally taken off. He started travelling and spent the early part of 1971 in Sudan covering the civil war, where he photographed armed child soldiers so young that their weapons dwarfed them.
Soon after he was in Bangladesh for the Cholera epidemic, where a photograph of a scared boy running away from a vaccination nurse earned him 2nd prize in the World Press Photo Contest. In 1972, John was imprisoned and beaten in prison in Kampala under the orders of dictator Idi Amin to jail all Journalist ‘spies’. Together in a cell with other Brits, John managed to hide his camera in and smuggle the film out. His photos of their cramped prison cell and inmates were subsequently splashed across the Daily Express with the headline “World Exclusive Pictures Taken Inside the Black Hole of Kampala”.
After the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the race was on to get inside to photograph the struggle. John, along with journalist Ross Benson, managed to get themselves smuggled in over the border, John, 6ft, was dressed in a full black burqa and must have looked very odd. This extremely dangerous assignment lasted for six weeks, travelling on foot with the Mujahideen fighting tribesmen, evading numerous Russian patrols and sometimes only having to survive on a handful of peanuts a day. Despite the hardships, John managed to take some of his most iconic photographs during this time, a nighttime shot of a Mujahideen safehouse with fighters lit from each window.
Perhaps one of John’s most famous photographs was taken on 12th October 1984, in Brighton. He got the only picture of the evacuation of a nightie-clad Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher being raced out of the Grand Hotel after it had been bombed by the IRA. John, who was in the bar with his cameras at the time of the 3am explosion, managed to keep his cool and was able to order people to lie down; help guests through the rubble; and, take pictures of the devastation around him, including a dust covered and injured Policeman and a bloodied couple in formal dress. After spotting Mrs Thatcher’s personal bodyguard, John had the presence of mind to ask if she was OK,. He then followed the detective to the back of the Hotel just as the PM and Denis Thatcher were being led down the rear staircase and into the car which sped off at such speed that John only managed to get one shot off. But he got it. Not only that, he managed to ring the desk and get the Express to change the front page with the news of the bomb at the last minute. Another world exclusive. His car shot of a determined looking Prime Minster, pensive husband and terrified aide remains one of the most memorable images of the time.
It was also in 1984 that John helped set up the forerunner of the BPPA, The Press Photographers’ Association, and was voted their first President. By founding the PPA, John could help channel his passion for helping others, especially young photojournalists from all backgrounds, with advice and precious time in his selfless and encouraging way.
In 1985, John was made Chief Photographer of the Daily Express. More assignments followed, wars, famine, disaster, royal weddings and even a nuclear disaster. John and reporter Kim Willsher were one of the first teams into Chernobyl in 1990.
In 1991, the 1st Gulf War loomed and John had been earmarked to head to Saudi Arabia for the start of hostilities. By this time, the sales of the Express had been in decline and management of the Express seemed to be focussed on cost cutting. One of the collective moans amongst the photographers on the paper at the time was about the “Bloody bean counters”, who seemed to say no to any travel or much needed replacement equipment or repairs. The first question being asked always seemed to be “How much?” The Express looked like they were going to be the only paper not to send on such a momentous news event. Additionally, it was insisted by the military that NBC (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical) suits and gas masks must be purchased by accredited Journalists travelling to any conflict zone. By the time the Express had made their decision to go (about 24 hours beforehand), there were no NBC suits available anywhere until a panicky Picture Editor phoned John excitedly to say that they had found “something similar that would do’ and they would courier it over to him as he had to get the next plane out. When John arrived at the Saudi Hotel, in front of all his other newspaper colleagues, he opened the bag containing the ‘suit’, and found it to be a cheap rubber and plastic NBC style ‘gimp’ suit purchased from a Soho sex shop and no use, as it would have melted in the extreme heat of the Saudi sun long before it saw any action. Comical, but a portent of the way newspapers were going to be run, which remained a constant bugbear for John.
It was in 1992 that John received a well deserved MBE for “Services to Journalism’, which he was immensely proud of.
John travelled many times to the war torn Balkans and witnessed more horrors. John had an affinity with children, and some of his most haunting pictures are of those too young to know what’s going on in the midst of an awful plight. Each time John would try to explain the circumstances of photographs, a lump would come to his throat, his eyes would well up and it would be difficult for him to finish the sentence. His haunting shot of a young boy on his hospital bed in Bosnia, resting his head on his crutches above a missing right leg, is a testament to the indiscriminate use of land mines
On another trip the Balkans, John and another photographer were dragged out of a car by Serbian forces and a gun was pointed at them. John told the soldier to put his gun away, to which the other terrified photographer told John to “Shut up or he’ll bloody kill us!” John calmly said to him that if he had really wanted to he would have done that already, and told the soldier to put down his weapon as they were British Journalists. They were soon on their way.
Not all John’s work was around conflict, and any Picture Editor could be assured that each time he was sent on a feature, John would return with at least a double page spread. He had an eye for beauty in nature, and took photographs that appealed to him even if they were never going to make the paper. Many abstract photographs, with long shadows and misty silhouettes, are in his collection. He was a thinking photographer. Not always sticking with the crowd, he could gain the confidence of a subject and keep calm under intense pressure. He preferred natural light on subjects, never used a studio and only used his flash in extremis.
John collected a huge clutch of awards during his 38 year career, including Press Photographer of the Year an unprecedented seven times. “They couldn’t give it to me again, so they made me a judge” he said. Even in 2001, his retirement year, John won the British Airways London Eye Award and was finalist in the Press Gazette Photographer of the Year.
On his final day at the paper before retirement, John came in to the office as usual and waited for a job to come up like the true professional he was. Picture Editors come and go and the sitting incumbent either didn’t know or care it the last day of John’s illustrious career at the Express. At 11am, the desk phoned and asked him to do a quick product shot of a shampoo bottle. The pictures duly arrived on the system an hour later. And then he was gone, no traditional ‘banging out’, no thank you, no goodbyes from the desk. The Editor later claimed he didn’t know about it at the time and offered his deepest apologies after a small piece had appeared in the Press Gazette.
Despite this, John soon began his freelance career working for clients, including various magazines and the Los Angeles Times. He never forgot his friends and associates and was still helping out “youngsters" wherever and whenever he could. He kept in touch with old colleagues and acquaintances, remaining lifelong friends with so many of them.
One of John’s oldest friends, Photographer Tom Stoddart said “John Downing’s wonderful images and awards during his long career at the Daily Express are rightly celebrated, but when press photographers gather together it’s his generosity and kindness that they speak of. He mentored and inspired many raw young photographers upon their arrival in Fleet Street.”
Echoing this, Photographer Hazel Thompson, mentored by John, said “It’s not just his incredible pictures that I love, he is a man of kindness. His generosity to me and others over our whole careers is a sign to us of this great man. I recently saw a box crammed so full of letters at his home that he had received from grateful photographers and friends that he had helped over the years”.
Although his career spanned over five decades, and took him to over 100 countries and all 7 continents, he never forgot his Welsh roots. With his love of music he joined the London Welsh Male Voice Choir, where every Thursday evening, John and his two brothers would sing out their hearts alongside several other red jacketed Welshmen at their centre on the Grays Inn Road..
In November 2019, his first book ‘Legacy’ was published through a crowdfunding campaign that took just four hours to raise the funds. John’s legacy will not just be his outstanding body of work, but also his generosity to others and his unswerving friendship.
John’s son from his first marriage, Gareth, died in 2007. A brother, Ronald, also predeceased him. He is survived by Anita, Bryn, his son from his 2nd marriage and his brothers David and Andrew
John Elfed Howell Downing, photographer, born 17 April 1940; died 8 April 2020
Awards
1971 Press Picture of the Year
1972 World Press Photo Competition, runner-up
1977 British Press Photographer of the Year
1978 Photokina Gold Medal
1978 World Press Photo Competition, runner-up
1979 British Press Photographer of the Year
1980 British Press Photographer of the Year
1981 British Press Photographer of the Year
1984 British Press Photographer of the Year
1988 British Press Photographer of the Year
1989 British Press Photographer of the Year
1990 United Nations Gold Medal
1990 Royal Newspaper Photographer of the Year
1991 Kodak Press Awards, runner-up in both News and Feature sections
1992 Kodak Press Awards, overall winner
1992 Honoured with an MBE for Services to Journalism
1994 International Photographer of the Year
1997 British Press Photographer of the Year, runner-up
1998 British Press Photographer of the Year, runner-up
2001 British Airways London Eye Competition, winner
2001 Finalist Press Gazette Photographer of the Year
2001 Lifetime Achievement Award - Picture Editors Guild
2011 Awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society
John is a Trustee of the Jubilee Campaign and a Patron of The Ian Parry Scholarship.