The son of a car mechanic, Towell was born in 1953 into a large family in rural Ontario, Canada, where he grew up. He studied Visual Arts at York University in Toronto. After a spell volunteering in Calcutta in 1976, he began to take photographs and write. After returning to Canada, he taught folk music to feed himself and his family. At the same time, he documented the Contra war in Nicaragua, and reported on the relatives of disappeared people in Guatemala. In 1984 he became a freelance photographer and author, concentrating on social and societal themes. He has been a member of the Magnum Agency since 1988. In 1996 he was the winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award for his series about the Mennonites.
