There is a fine art to capturing the beauty around us, and Luke Downs, who describes his work as abstract realist, has it down to a science with his photography which art aficionados can ogle inside his Saltmarsh Galley located in Cowichan Bay.
Downs, who is originally from Gloucestershire, England, 100 miles west of London, first dove into the art of photography at the age of 10. He fondly remembers his dad taking holiday photos and showing slideshows in their home and he received his first camera as a gift.
Downs studied Rural Estate Management at the Royal Agriculture University in Cirencester, England.He admitted it was the portion on forestry that he found the most interesting. Upon graduation, Downs decided to let the world be his classroom as he embraced his inner Jack Kerouac with the decision to spend 18 months hitchhiking across North America in 1981. Before setting out on this adventure, he made sure to upgrade from his first two cameras, which were Agfas, to his first single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. In 1981 it came with a 50 mm lens, and Downs decided to purchase a 135 mm semi-telephoto lens for it as well to up his game before hitching from New York to Canada that same year.
"I knew I was going to be travelling so I wanted to capture better photos than my Agfa would have allowed me to at that time," said Downs. "I first hitchhiked out to Provincetown at the end of Cape Cod where the Pilgrim fathers landed. I had a lovely afternoon in P town, then stuck out my thumb and headed west. Along the way someone told me about Tofino, and that sounded cool so I thought I'd go there. I crossed the border at Vancouver and ended up meeting my future wife who was coming to Parksville for the weekend. She was reading the book I'm OK, You're OK while waiting for the bus, so I ended up asking her about it and the rest was history."
Downs spent nearly a year in the Yukon with his first wife before gravitating back to the lovely area of Cirencester, where their kids were eventually born. It was during his time in the Yukon that he experienced a photography awakening once he stumbled upon the book Photography and the Art of Seeing by New Brunswick photographer Freeman Patterson, who would later be a recipient of the Order of Canada.
"I developed the art of seeing, having read his book and looking at his pictures," said Downs. "I see things sometimes in a very particular way, and that is what I like to try to bring out, showing what I see and the way I see things. When it comes to landscape photography up there you have some of the best material in the world to work with, it's fabulous."
From the long and cold winters, which they enjoyed, to Kluane National Park where they built igloos, he recalls capturing hillsides with a dark sky behind them and without even trying certain photos veered towards abstraction. Once he returned to England he was given the opportunity to do slideshows of the Yukon for various nature conversation groups, and by 1992 Downs and his young family found their way back to Canada.
"There had always been a tacit agreement that we would one day move back to Canada to be closer to her family and so when the kids were five and three we did that," said Downs. "Her folks lived in Parksville, so that is where I spent my first night in Canada, and it's where I then spent a good number of years."
Upon moving to Parksville, Downs started his own company, The Landscape Consultants. It is true what they say that when one door closes, another one opens as just when his job in forestry came to a close an opportunity opened to work in landscaping where Downs fell in love with the art of tree pruning.
"I did some installation, but what I ended up doing a lot of is pruning," said Downs. "Cutting the same piece of grass week after week would have bored me to tears, but going back and cutting the same trees year after year was actually fascinating. Regardless if it made the trees more productive, the trees just look so much better when they are properly pruned."
Downs met his second wife Laurie Mitchell, who was born and raised in Victoria, through mutual friends. As they both neared retirement they decided to move further south to be closer to her family, which worked well as they both have kids who live in B.C.'s capital. With Downs having country roots he preferred not to live in a bigger city and fortune smiled on them when they found the perfect space in Cowichan Bay.
"Laurie used to come to Cowichan Bay when she was a little nipper because her uncle lived there for over 35 years so she used to get put on the ferry in Brentwood Bay and her uncle, who was one of the original founders of the Maritime Museum, would then pick her and her little sister up in Mill Bay for the weekend," said Downs. "Cowichan Bay was high on her list even though we looked at places in Shawnigan Lake and Crofton, and then we came across where we are now and are really glad we did."
The couple purchased their Cowichan Bay home in 2020.
Downs was inspired by the extra space in their new home that was initially intended to be an indoor suite, and was previously used as a daycare by the former owners, and created Saltmarsh Gallery, which can be accessed at the side of their home. The cozy creative space currently has 25 eye-catching pieces lining the walls, as well as an array of smaller pieces to view, and everything is for sale. The name for the gallery was inspired by the area and hikes Downs and his wife enjoy taking on the four trails that lead out to the Cowichan estuarine marshes, one of the spots where he enjoys one of his many passions — bird watching. He recalls being drawn to it before ever taking his first photo and started when he was gifted The Observers Book of Birds when he was still a lad.
"I thought if we're going to have this place I might as well do this," said Downs. "Laurie and I had a few names that we bashed around, but we go for walks all the time out on the marshes at the Cowichan Estuary and have found much inspiration and have taken many pictures out there. I record the birds I see when I walk out on the estuary; like many people my favourite part of bird watching is spotting a rarity."
Some of the rare feathered highlights to the area that Downs has gotten a glimpse of include a snowy egret, a tropical king bird, and the long-legged wading bird the Hudsonian Godwit, named for living near Hudson Bay and known for migrating as far as South Africa.
"There are always a few that show up on Vancouver Island every autumn," said Downs. "I had seen one in the spring when I was in the Yukon 40 years earlier."
Downs's current tool of his trade is an Olympus SLR which was a gift from his son. The Saltmarsh Gallery owner said he doesn't like to be bogged down with the weight of various lenses and will usually just decide on taking either a macro or semi-telephoto lens before heading out the door as well as his little lightweight pocket Canon camera which he said is ideal for wide-angle shots.
"You lose a certain amount of light with a zoom lens, so I always have fixed lenses because you can open them up wider which allows for more scope and depth of field," said Downs.
While Downs has captured a few stunning images of birds including a hummingbird, a mallard duck, and marsh wren, his specialty has always been landscapes, shrubs and trees. This may have stemmed from the creative eye he brought to his love of landscaping, and he admits even in his abstract photos he gravitates to trees as his subject, and finds inspiration through form, and composition. In the past he has had his work on display at the Old Schoolhouse Arts Centre in Parksville.
"By the time I started landscaping and pruning, my photography was more general like landscape," said Downs. "I started with trees and shrubs, I also really enjoy distorting the effect of reflections. If I see something that works as composition I think that is quite important. I'm a ruthless cropper, so I go through them, and sometimes it's just a matter of snipping off a little bit to avoid litter in the corners, but sometimes you bring it up and there is nothing really extraneous but the balance is wrong. So I will end up reviewing quite a bit, and the finished article is not necessarily what I started with, even on a realistic picture where I haven't done any manipulation but only simply framed it better. In some cases I forgot what I originally took the picture of while in some cases it's obvious even in the abstract."
When Downs isn't capturing the beauty of the nature, he nurtures some of his other passions which include playing cricket. Many may also recognize Downs from his involvement with the Shawnigan Players and since moving he has taken on roles in The Crucible, Cymbaline, All's Well That Ends Well, Hamlet, and most recently last summer's Love's Labour's Lost.
There is no charge to visit Saltmarsh Gallery, and hours are flexible. While he always has it open during the day when he is home, Downs said it is often best to set up an appointment to view his work, which can be done through his website at LukeDowns.ca or by emailing him at lukedowns.ca.
"When viewing or purchasing my art, I hope people take away possibilities for themselves," said Downs. "That they look at one of my photographs and think how interesting, that he sees this that way. I hope they feel inspired to start looking at common things around them differently and see the possibilities within them, and to see the little interesting things in such subjects themselves."
