Lonsdale’s latest a local
There’s a painterly quality to Neil Dankoff’s work – the vivid colours, the ghostly figures, the bright lighting that makes his images appear to “glow from behind,” as Lonsdale Gallery owner Chad Wolfond puts it.
Each image is the result of painstakingly shooting in multiple exposures to capture a wider range of colours than the human eye can see, then blending as many as twenty individual shots together to create a single photo.
“The only time Photoshop is used is to stitch them together,” Dankoff said proudly, while giving a tour of “From Israel to Africa,” his summer exhibit at the Forest Hill Village-based Lonsdale Gallery, which is known for showcasing international artists.
It can certainly be argued that Dankoff’s work has an international bent. The Wall depicts a famous segment of Jerusalem’s Western Wall that has served as a holy site for Jewish pilgrims for centuries. Bordering his image with the iconic gold dome of the city’s old temple mount and the edge of al-Aqsa mosque, Dankoff draws the viewer’s eye to the hundreds of worshippers on the ground, many covered in white but a clear handful in modern dress. While each body is distinct, the lack of detail in the faces and the photo’s vivid greens, tans, blues and especially gold lends the photograph a pleasing trompe l’oeil effect.
Elephant Panorama captures its two gigantic subjects just before the onset of a storm.
Another cityscape, Cape Town, presents the South African capital at sunrise, with Table Mountain in the background.
The photos showcased in From Israel to Africa were taken during two separate adventures in 2010 and 2014, the former inspired by Dankoff’s Jewish background, the latter by a friend urging him to visit South Africa.
Both were “amazing” experiences, Dankoff says, though he admits “I had expected (Israel) to mostly be desert.”
In South Africa, Dankoff was inspired not only by the variety of human settlements – St. James, which depicts a row of colourful houses, has been used to advertise the exhibit – but the abundant wildlife in nearby Namibia, where he photographed the elephants after learning they had been known to kill visitors, then pleaded with his tour guide to let him photograph them anyway.
Born and raised in Montreal, the 46-year-old Dankoff studied film and communications at McGill University but, like many art students before him, started his professional career on a different path. Working in the pet supply business, he first moved to Toronto in 1998 because his most important customers worked there.
In 2002 Dankoff, now living in Forest Hill, founded Reaction Studio, a corporate video and photography company that eventually started “running itself,” he says.
“I found myself with some free time and a passion for photography, and it seemed to be the perfect moment,” he says.
A married father of three – two sons, ages seven and 11, and a daughter, aged nine – Dankoff limits himself to one photography trip per year, but also finds time during his professional trips, such as a recent tour of the Four Seasons resorts in Hawaii, to shoot material for himself. He began showcasing his work at the Lonsdale Gallery five years ago.
“(Dankoff) has a real ability to find inspiration that’s mesmerizing from both nature and, with this South Africa and Israel series, an urban environment,” Wolfond says when asked why he chose to showcase Dankoff’s work. “They’re really images that draw a person in.”
From Israel to Africa ran at the Lonsdale Gallery on 410 Spadina Rd., from June 9 to Aug. 9.
Very interesting, I look forward to viewing his work