PHOTOGRAPHER’S BIO
Growing up in Toronto, Durnford King was one of those kids who always knew what he wanted to do. By age ten he had commandeered the family camera and was experimenting with strange angles and weird lighting. His prepubescent piece de resistance was a multiple exposure of his kid brother looking down at himself sitting in a chair.
Upon graduating college he became an assistant producer at a large advertising agency and within fifteen months, through a combination of luck, hard work and the brash confidence of youth, he was writing, producing and directing commercials for national clients including Buick, Cadillac, United Airlines and various coffees and puddings.
Moving to Los Angeles to direct commercials and music videos, he used (and some say abused) the available technology to create visual landscapes for recording artists such as Roberta Flack, Sinatra, Graham Nash and others.
Having written and/or directed television specials for CBS and ABC, King received an International EMMY nomination for producing and directing The Canadiana Suite for the CBC in Canada. Of this one-hour jazz/symphony featuring legendary jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson and a thirty-five-piece orchestra, one reviewer wrote, “the simple, splendid truth is that this production is a first-rate wedding of music and technology” and “King’s feel for Peterson’s music is triumphant”. This is one of King’s favorite reviews.
His considers his photographic work a natural extension of his film directing and a more intimate way to express creative concepts. Instead of managing a thirty-man crew and cranky production manager, he can design in solitude with only ten digits and a brain. And photography allows him to explore ideas - political, social and spiritual - that don’t require mass acceptance (although he thinks that would be nice.)
King’s photographs have been displayed at the St. Louis Arts Center, the Stage Gallery in New York, the Hubbard Museum in New Mexico, the Ted Turner United Nations Foundation in Washington, DC, and have appeared in photographic books and Photographer’s Forum magazine.
When not behind the lens, Durnford King writes for television and the screen.