The QCT remembers and honours Jay Ouellet

By QCT Staff

Published: January 6, 2021

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Photo: Shirley Nadeau from QCT archives

This photo was taken when QCT assignment editor Shirley Nadeau interviewed Jay Ouellet in 2015. Even though Jay was in front of the camera, he couldn’t resist documenting the moment.

The QCT team was saddened to learn of the passing of Jay Ouellet in late December. Chiropractor by day and astrophotographer by night, he took photos of many celestial objects and local events that were published in the QCT.
Ouellet grew up in Quebec City, attended St. Lawrence High School (before it became a CEGEP) and went on to study at McGill University, Université Laval and Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto. He opened his practice in Quebec City in 1982.

But it was Jay’s love of the heavens and of photography that really made him tick, or click. During an interview with the QCT in 2015, Ouellet said, “My father gave me a telescope when I was 10 years old. I bought my first camera when I was 13, with money I earned cutting grass.”

In his teens, after seeing the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and visiting the Montreal Planetarium, Ouellet decided he wanted to photograph the stars and planets. He also took wedding photos and developed the prints himself in a home darkroom.

For his 40th birthday, Ouellet treated himself to a “really serious” telescope that was attached to his camera and thus transformed into a telephoto lens. With the advent of digital photography, he liked to keep things simple, with a Canon camera and a telephoto lens. He was self-taught, learning from photography magazines.

Ouellet was a guest photographer for the QCT for 25 years, and won many awards for his work. His first astronomy photo appeared in the paper in 1995. “It was a snapshot of the Hale-Bopp comet,” he later recalled. “The comet appeared as a faint fuzzy blob among a few stars. It was no Pulitzer, yet I was very happy … my first published astrophoto!”

Besides astrophotos, Ouellet took photos at sports events and concerts. He regularly covered Rouge et Or football games and Festival d’Été concerts on the Plains of Abraham. He had the chance to meet many stars (the human kind) and even treated some of them for their aches and pains. His office wall was covered with autographed photos of entertainers such as magician David Copperfield, singers Bon Jovi and Phil Collins, and groups like Kiss, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Backstreet Boys. He took photos of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate Middleton, when they visited Quebec City as newlyweds in July 2011.

For many years, Jay’s mother, Jo (Quart) Ouellet, contributed WONDERWORD puzzles to the QCT and other newspapers. Syndicated in 1970, WONDERWORD is called “the world’s greatest word search puzzle.” After her death in 1997, Jay’s brother David continued the feature, which now appears in hundreds of newspapers around the world. Jay’s brother Gary, who died in 2002, was a renowned magician, television producer, lawyer and government lobbyist.

The Ouellet brothers’ maternal grandparents were Senator Josie (Dinan) Quart and Harry S. Quart of Quebec City. In 1937, Harry Quart was part-owner of the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph in partnership with Gwyllym Dunn, J.S. O’Meara and the Price family.

Jay’s photo of the 2013 Loto-Québec fireworks was featured on the front cover of the special 250th-anniversary edition of the QCT, published on June 21, 2014, and, in tribute to him, is featured again on the cover of this edition.

The last photo that Jay submitted, of the comet Neowise, is on the QCT’s website. Both the first and last of his photos that were published in this newspaper are of rarely occurring celestial bodies. Just like Jay, they are one of a kind.

Jay’s obituary, written by his brother David, can be found here.