Godfrey Jordan
Biography

Godfrey Jordan grew up in Toronto’s then-pastoral town of Agincourt where, in 1965, the opening of a Woolco store also opened up a new world of possibilities. It had a camera department with a very patient and helpful salesman named Peter Laity who became his photography tutor. Godfrey bought his first 35mm camera, an Argus C-3 rangefinder, there at age 13 with the earnings from a part time job. He regularly traded up through a variety of SLR's and onto a square-format RicohFlex to complete his basic training.

High school days at Senator O’Connor College School in Don Mills involved a lot of time with the Camera Club. Under the strict direction of Brother Ambrose, it provided opportunities to practice many shooting styles and learn darkroom techniques such as bulk rolling film stock into canisters, mixing chemicals and developing rolls, burning-in and dodging to print/enlarge photos for the school newspaper and yearbook… sometimes all within two hours. It was a boot camp for young photographers (“nerd” was a then-unknown word), a great place to be, with no academic credits involved: you just did it for the fun.

Dozens of rolls of film later, the Summer of 1969 came around.

By this time, Godfrey had a manual Pentax S-3 (automatics were just coming out and very expensive) which forced him to quickly assess lighting conditions, utilize hand meters and shoot instinctively relying on the knowledge forged over darkroom tables. All that experience gave him the confidence to start knocking on doors.

Luck (definition): "when preparation meets opportunity"

His portfolio of school newspaper and yearbook work impressed the Toronto Star entertainment editor John Macfarlane enough to agree to his first photojournalism assignment: covering Jimi Hendrix at Maple Leaf Gardens. It was May 3, 1969 and Godfrey was 16 years of age.

For the rest of that landmark year, he documented most of the major rock music events that occurred in Toronto. This chronicle of the audiences, fans and performers of 1969 and a few years afterwards presents a time capsule of a historic period in Toronto’s cultural history.

That early background in still photography and 8mm filmmaking throughout high school led Godfrey to York University where he graduated from its Program in Film. He has since produced numerous documentaries and award-winning corporate videos. Freelance work has taken him to New Zealand, Kennedy Space Centre, New York, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Colorado Springs, Houston, Dallas, etc. as well as a number of Canadian locales.

The narrative of storytelling through pictures transitioned into writing full time. Scripts and journalism pieces sparked a series of novels and nonfiction works. Godfrey is the author of 12 books which have been published internationally and translated into five languages.

Screenplays have been optioned; screenwriting grants awarded by the Ontario Arts Council, the Harold Greenburg Fund - Foundation to Underwrite New Drama, and Ontario Film Development Corporation. At Humber College for two years he taught Scriptwriting and Film Direction. He is a Canadian Film Centre alumnus, a member of the Writers Guild of Canada since 1976 and a Project Management Professional accredited with PMI through the Schulich School of Business.

Godfrey lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons, both of whom favour classic rock.