About John Gundy
Producer, Director, Photographer
“I love being Dyslexic, it has giving me a unique way of exploring and communicating with many cultures”.
John’s life as an artist began in the mid-seventies. He had a busy career in the Canadian and American television, radio, theatre, music, new media and film industries, exploring diverse creative roles including producer, director, DOP, and a residency at the Canadian Film Centre, His list of film work includes Black Christmas, Outrageous, The Tomorrow Man, A Winter Tan, I Mad Man!, Gate II, Katts & Dog, and Internet Slutts. He has produced 12 theatrical shorts, which have appeared in over 25 festivals, winning eight International awards.
John has also worked extensively in the theatre world and as director of The Crimson Thread and The Owl and Pussycat, for Theatre on Main Newmarket. Most recently John directed a production of Twelfth Night for Guelph Little Theatre’s 2010-11 season.
Theatre and film are group creations and after directing two plays and helping with the production of 7 others at Newmarketʼs Theatre on Main, he moved to the solitary art of photography. He creates active portraiture from the creative faces of chefs, farmers and local food producers. Johns first solo gallery showing “The Event” selected from 250,000 photographs, taken over five years, opened in February 2010. His work was also presented at the Ontario Pavilion in Vancouver during the 2010 Olympic games. John’s photography has been published locally and nationally in publications including the Toronto Star, CityBites, Good Food Revolution, Gremolata, and Ivy Knight’s I Hate The Word Blog. He has worked for numerous corporate clients in addition to his editorial and exhibition work.
Short list of John’s teachers and mentors:
Steven Katz, Bob White, Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, Martin Hunter, Jacqueline McClintock, Sheldon Davis, Stephen Ouimette and so many more.
Some of John’s influences:
Yousuf Karsh (my first picture book)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (photographer)
Haskell Wexler (cinematographer)
Sanford Meisner (acting teacher)
Francis Bacon (painter)
Michael Merrill (painter)
Influential quotes:
Henri Cartier-Bresson
"Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation."
“To take photographs means to recognize – simultaneously and within a fraction of a second – both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one’s head, one’s eye and one’s heart on the same axis.”
"Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. Success depends on the extent of one’s general culture, one’s set of values, one’s clarity of mind one’s vivacity. The thing to be feared most is the artificially contrived, the contrary to life."
“Photography is a solitary activity which exist only because of others.”
"Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again."
“Sharpness is a bourgeois concept..."
Sanford Meisner
“Acting is the ability to live truthfully under given imaginary circumstances.
Always be specific.
Every little moment has a meaning all its own.
Stay in the moment.
Live fully - moment to moment- that is reality.
Listen, observe, Listen, really look, Listen, concentrate, Listen.
Don't do anything until something happens to make you do it.
Act before you think, your instincts are more honest than your thoughts.
There is no such thing as genial charm.
An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words.
There is no such thing as nothing.
Silence can say a lot, it can also cover up a magnitude of sins.
Don't take anything for granted.”
Uta Hagen
“We must overcome the notion that we must be regular... it robs you of the
chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.”
Helmut Newton
“I hate good taste. Its the worst thing that can happen to a creative person.”