September 26, 2011
John Blakemore is a British photographer and printer who has been practicing his art since 1956. He was Emeritus Professor of Photography at the University of Derby, where he taught from 1970 to 2001. He is renowned for his richly detailed and nuanced landscapes and still-lives, predominantly in black and white.
John Blakemore, untitled, date unknown
Blakemore is recognized as one of England's leading landscape photographers and he has published several books, the first of which, John Blakemore, British Image No. 3, was published in 1977.
John Blakemore, tulip, date unknown.
Blakemore refers to his tulip journey by which he means his picture making:
when i made the first simple photographs of a vase of tulips on my kitchen table i could not have made, could not have imagined the later series, the variety of images that i would finally make. They became possible only through the extended visual enquiry that i allowed myself.The activity of picture making also made it necessary to extend my use of the photographic process as i imagined different photographs, different print tonalities, and had to discover the means to realise them.
His tulip journey was ultimately a visual journey: an investigation and discovery of visual possibilities. The tulip became an object of attention, of fascination, became both text and pretext for an activity of picture making. The photographs are not finally, or not primarily, about tulips, they contain tulips.
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