Collectable

For a while now I have heard John Blakemore's name uttered in reverential tones. As a photographer, he is 'somebody' in the East Midlands. Self-taught, and with two O levels to his name, he rose to become Reader at Derby University. These days he leads workshops on making photobooks.

His work was largely supported by the Arts Council up until his retirement from the university. For an academic, he seems to have written remarkably little. In fact, he told us at his presentation two weeks ago that after following a theme intensely, he can feel lost as to what to tackle next and might not pick up a camera for a while. I first saw one of his photographs at an 'Inside the Outside exhibition in the Photo Parlour in Nottingham. It was different.

Anyway, I've managed to buy three of his books. They no longer seem to be widely available. His Collection of Photos 1955-2010 is comprehensive, I'm pleased to say. He works mostly in silver gelatin prints, black and white to ignoramuses like me, although latterly has begun to use colour, albeit in a monochrome sense. There is  no denying that his work has impact.

He was finally prevailed upon to produce his Black and White Photography Workshop, which I have yet to study, published in 2005. Perhaps the work for which he is most noted was published in The Stilled Gaze.  He wrote that the act of seeing the voluptuousness of tulips taught his  mind to go beyond the obvious. He photographed tulips in every stage of blooming and decay, dismantling them to photograph their inner parts.

'I spent much time just contemplating the flowers, with the camera far from my thoughts. I delighted in the tulips’ voluptuous presence. Such periods of contemplation, of visual pleasure, are always a necessary part of my work process.'


Pictured today are his Collected Photos and an opening page of The Stilled Gaze, which bears his signature. My apologies for the blur.


I now have two books signed by their authors, this one, and also a collection of poems by John Betjeman, set to music. I don't count the copy of Sahara, signed by Michael Palin, as that was at a book signing session.