Influential British fine-art photographer John Blakemore has died aged 88.
Born in Coventry in 1936, Blakemore was completely self-taught. He started out as a freelance news photographer and ran a portrait studio before going on to teach creative photography at the University of Derby from 1970 onwards.
During this time, he developed his own personal projects. Blakemore worked on several series, concentrating on different aspects of the landscape and the elements that shape it. He used landscapes as a metaphor for his own state of mind, often using long exposures to record the movement of wind-blown trees, rivers, or the sea. Once asked how long his exposure had been for one these images, he is said to have replied "Two Marlboro Reds at f/90."
In an interview with his former pupil and DCW contributor Benedict Brain, Blakemore said "The idea of energy in the landscape was obviously manifest in water, but I began thinking of ways in which I could discover that in the wider landscape, and so I began photographing the wind. The wind is invisible and the photograph is concerned with representing ‘surface.’
"One is not photographing the wind but the process of the wind. The way I found to do this was by using multiple exposure. Some images have 48 exposures and it could take up to an hour to expose one negative.”
Blakemore gave up landscape work in the early 1980s and concentrated on still-life photography. His seminal 1994 book The Stilled Gaze is a collection of sensual, detailed images of tulips, taken over a nine-year period. This “investigation and discovery of visual possibilities” is one of his major bodies of work. His archive of some 1400 pieces, and including his signature handmade books, were acquired by Birmingham Library in 2010.
He is perhaps best remembered, however, as a great educator. Commenting to the BBC, his friend and colleague Paul Hill remarks "John wasn't a diva. He was an extremely engaging individual who was very generous with his time… Engaging with students was his happiest time."
John Blakemore died on January 14 after a short illness.
