John Blakemore was one of the few mid-20th Century British art photographers who seemed to ignore the resistance to the medium in this country and dedicated himself to photography. Born in 1935 Dewi Lewis have recently published 50 years of his work. Interestingly it was the recoil from the trauma of divorce that inititated his early, great B&W landscape and still life work. (A strikingly similar story is behind Masahisa Fukase's Karasu's compulsion with photographing Ravens.)
As a pictorialist he is totally unfashionable. His nine-year-long obsession with tulips produced works not disimilar to the lush sensuality of Edward Steichen or Andre Kertesz. The last time I saw any of Blakemore's work exhibited was in a little library gallery somewhere (Derby, probably) several years ago, and the images were small colour snapshots taken in his garden. They were extremely modest with minimal concern in their curating and easily overlooked or dismissed as of no consequence, particularly in that cluttered space, appearing even to be an amateurish effort. But even within those disconcerting surroundings his delicate, unassuming images displayed perfect zen like judgement.
As a pictorialist he is totally unfashionable. His nine-year-long obsession with tulips produced works not disimilar to the lush sensuality of Edward Steichen or Andre Kertesz. The last time I saw any of Blakemore's work exhibited was in a little library gallery somewhere (Derby, probably) several years ago, and the images were small colour snapshots taken in his garden. They were extremely modest with minimal concern in their curating and easily overlooked or dismissed as of no consequence, particularly in that cluttered space, appearing even to be an amateurish effort. But even within those disconcerting surroundings his delicate, unassuming images displayed perfect zen like judgement.
