John Cato

John Chester Cato (2 November 1926 – 30 January 2011) was an Australian photographer and teacher.

Cato started his career as a commercial photographer and later moved towards fine-art photography and education.

Cato spent most of his life in Melbourne, Australia.

John Chester Cato was born on November 2, 1926, in Hobart, Tasmania, to Mary Booth and John (Jack) Cato.

His career in photography started at the age of 12 as an apprentice to his father, Jack Cato.

Returning in 1946 after service in the Pacific for the Royal Australian Navy during WW2, Cato worked as a self-employed photographer before being hired by The Argus as a press photographer in 1947.

Cato held that position until 1950 when he became a photographer and assistant for Athol Shmith Pty Ltd. in the Rue de la Paix building at 125 Collins Street, Melbourne.

He married Dawn Helen Cadwallader of Brighton at the register at St. Mary's Church of England, East Caulfield, in October that year.

Their eldest son, also John, was born in 1952.

During this period he undertook research for his father Jack on the latter's The Story of the Camera in Australia published in 1955.

That year, Cato and Shmith became business partners and started Athol Shmith–John Cato Pty Ltd.

By 1958 they were known so well by the public that their portraits could be used to endorse a television brand in its advertising.

Cato's clients included U.S.P. Benson Pty.

Ltd., Worth Hosiery, Myer, Hammersley Iron Pty Ltd, The Australian Ballet, Southern Cross Hotel and General Motors, and his fashion photography occupied full pages of newspapers and magazines.

When the MoMA's The Family of Man exhibition came to Melbourne's Preston Motors Show Room on February 23, 1959, Cato visited the show several times and was inspired by its humanist themes and optimism.

The partners' business was prospering and at times employed 26 staff and hired other photographers including Norman Ikin and Hans Hasenpflug to cope with the volume of business.

In 1970, four years before leaving his commercial practice, Cato began exploring photography as an art form.

His fine art photography drew connections between humanity and the environment, exploring a different theme in each photo essay.

Cato made 'straight' (directly imaged) landscape photographs usually with large or medium-format cameras in order to "explore the elements of the landscape", usually enhancing these in printing.

Over a ten-year period, Cato spent two years at a time focusing on a particular symbolic theme in the Australian landscape, often spending a large amount of time in the wilderness observing the conditions and waiting for the perfect opportunity.

He would often wait and contemplate a scene for days before finally pressing the shutter when the moment was right.

Cato's work was deeply considered and clearly showed his unique perspective on the natural elements around us.

Cato used symbolism in his work, the consciously constructed image being an interest among 1970s photographers, young and experienced, including his colleague Paul Cox.

The question of the status of photography as an art form was being resolved during this decade; Lynne Warren writes "The creative uses of photography expanded considerably in the 1970s. The medium began to be absorbed into the mainstream art world as conceptual and performance artists started to employ the medium. For body artist Stelarc, photographs were an important creative adjunct to his art events in the 1970s. In a different vein, Jon Rhodes was one of several photographers of the period to address social issues when he used the medium to bring attention to land rights issues for Aboriginal people in the Gove Peninsula in his series, Just Another Sunrise? Others, such as John Cato and Les Walkling, explored the metaphoric potential of photography.

Cinematographer Nino Martinetti, one of Cato's past students, said "Look carefully at John Cato's simple photographs of rocks, branches, trees, bark, sand, water and reflections… is that reality? Yes, but not as many people see it. This is the fine line where the art of photography and reality stand, where the artist captures an emotion for us to share and interpret."

Cato's personal work was described as "a reflection of the psyche, not of light, that allows a consciousness to be present in the figuration of the photographic prints. The personal work is an expression of his self, his experience, his story and his language."

Earth Song was exhibited as part of the Frontiers exhibition, a 1971 group show at the National Gallery of Victoria of photographers who were exploring the idea of the medium as an art form.

For Cato's first photographic essay described as such, he completed five black and white photo sequences between 1971 and 1979.

In each sequence, Cato explored the expression of nature and creation, which he saw as the physical representation of his own life experiences and philosophy.

Nevertheless Cato moved away from commercial photography in 1974 after experiencing what he described as "a kind of menopause".

Shortly after leaving his partnership with Athol Shmith, Cato began his teaching career and started to focus on fine art photography.

Cato was one of the first photographers in Melbourne to give up their commercial practice to become a fine art photographer.

Cato's sequence went on to Horsham Art Gallery 14 December 1974 – 30 January 1975 for his first solo exhibition.

In the 1982 assessment of Age critic Geoff Strong, Essay 2 is the "stuff of social comment" compared to other work, and focuses on "the sublimation of Aboriginal culture by Europeans".

Gallery director Rebecca Hossack, who showed his work in her London gallery in 2002, reports that;

Cato is not content to see himself merely as an 'artist' or a 'photographer.' He describes himself – in his beliefs – as an 'animist':

It is a vision that he traces back to the mythology of the Ancient Greeks, but it has interesting resonances, too, with the beliefs of the Australian aboriginals and the practice of their art.

Earth Song was Cato's first collection of personal work to be exhibited.

This series consisted of 52 colour photographs sequenced in a way that allowed the work to be recognised as individual photographs and as part of an overall concept.

Cato's use of musical analogies can be seen in the sequencing of Earth Song, described as using "melodic line and symphonic form as its metaphoric basis".