John Blakemore Passed Away January 14th 2025

Very sad to hear that John Blakemore has died. He was a great help to me when I designed and built my first 5 x 4 camera forty years ago. He gave me lots of useful advice and invited me to his house so I could show him the finished camera. He really liked the tripod I made for the camera and asked me to make him one in exchange for some of his prints. When John and his partner went off into the kitchen to cook a meal, John left me with a big pile of his photographs, all in 20 by 16 mounts - an exhibition that had just come back from somewhere or other. "Wounds on Trees" I think it was. What an experience to be able to sit there and look slowly at all those wonderful photographs.
After that I went on a couple of John's workshops, and learned two things that have stayed with me ever since. One was the idea of working on a sequence of photographs on a theme - rather than just making one- off stand alone photographs. I think I was already starting to do that, so the idea really made sense to me. The other thing was to edit and sequence your prints and put them into photo books. I have been doing that for many years now and have about twenty so far.
Rest in peace John.

Alan
 
Sad news indeed.

I never met him nor attended any workshops or exhibitions, but the books of his that i have are treasured, well thumbed and a constant source of inspiration.

RIP Mr Blakemore

Mike
 
I have always admired his work and particularly remember that he used one camera and lens - a 5x4 MPP I think - for many years.
 
Alan Clark said:
Very sad to hear that John Blakemore has died. He was a great help to me when I designed and built my first 5 x 4 camera forty years ago. He gave me lots of useful advice and invited me to his house so I could show him the finished camera. He really liked the tripod I made for the camera and asked me to make him one in exchange for some of his prints. When John and his partner went off into the kitchen to cook a meal, John left me with a big pile of his photographs, all in 20 by 16 mounts - an exhibition that had just come back from somewhere or other. "Wounds on Trees" I think it was. What an experience to be able to sit there and look slowly at all those wonderful photographs.
After that I went on a couple of John's workshops, and learned two things that have stayed with me ever since. One was the idea of working on a sequence of photographs on a theme - rather than just making one- off stand alone photographs. I think I was already starting to do that, so the idea really made sense to me. The other thing was to edit and sequence your prints and put them into photo books. I have been doing that for many years now and have about twenty so far.
Rest in peace John.

Alan
Click to expand...
Do you have a picture of your home made camera Alan?

John inspired a lot of photographers. Sad to know he has passed away.
 
Keith, I don't have a picture of the camera and it is long gone. Not knowing any better I built it with a full range of movements, but with no means of zeroing them. It took ages to set up. And I realised eventually that the only movement I needed for what I was doing was front tilt. So I scrapped the camera and built another one using all the useful bits. I still use it, but it's nothing like the original. Later, I built another, more lightweight, 5 x 4 camera. There are photos of it on this forum somewhere, (but not in "Show is your camera")
 
Alan Clark said:
I realised eventually that the only movement I needed for what I was doing was front tilt. So I scrapped the camera and built another one using all the useful bits. I still use it, but it's nothing like the original. Later, I built another, more lightweight, 5 x 4 camera. There are photos of it on this forum somewhere, (but not in "Show is your camera")
Click to expand...
Okay. I don't think I have the skills to make my own so it's good that you are able to do that.

Anyway, that's something I will look up in other threads.
 
A long time ago John used to come down and give talks on Peter Goldfield's Duckspool photography workshops in Somerset. When he came down he would leave some of his large prints on display at Broomfield Church hall, the village close to Duckspool on the Quantock Hills. I had a poorly paying job and a young family so could not afford the Duckspool workshops....The Duckspool website has been maintained in memoriam and there are references to a 'photographer's garden' including a John Blakemore willow...'Outside, the photographers' garden is coming on apace - Jan Groover's fruit pear trees, John Blakemore's tortuosa willow and Fay Godwin's ornamental pear amongst others . . . . http://www.duckspool.com/duckspool/duckspool.htm#Poolside Despatches 1996
 
I did my first workshop with John Blakemore e at Duckspool, back in 1989. Peter Goldfield was a lovely guy and Sue his partner (later wife) an excellent cook. Unlike other workshops, all meals were communal, Peter, Sue, the visiting photographer - in this case JB, and the participants. It was an amazing atmosphere.

On the last day we had a field trip making images, before returning to Duckspool. I had no interest in making images that day, I was working on an Exhibition, the location had no relevance to any of my work. So I sought a quiet retreat to find John sitting on a log thinking much the same. We had a long, deep, conversation, on returning to Duckspool and packing up John had prints for sale. He was amused when someone (actually a photography lecturer) approached me first, buying 3 of mine.

I then bought a couple of John's prints, and he said those are not what I would have expected (he meant his early landscapes). I said no, I wanted images that push boundaries, not close to my own work. I was surprised the following Christmas to receive a hand made card from John with one of his prints from Inscape, the Ephemeral Garden.

Perhaps I should add the lecturer who bought 3 of my prints, thought I would quickly disappear, so collared me first, he also bought two of John's prints.

Ian
 
Small world isnt it. I knew Peter and Sue only vaguely, my son went to the same school as their children....it was quite a strange feeling knowing that world famous photographers were meeting in the middle of the Quantock Hills, just a few miles away, and I couldnt afford to join them. Its great that Peter's website still exists to tell the grandeur of all he achieved.

Having retired some years ago, I am now on the first year of an online BA Hons Degree in Photography with Falmouth University. I'm wanting to develop my monochrome work as a part of that course, though being online and distant from Falmouth we are denied access to darkrooms, technicians etc, and the expertise of my tutors at least appear to be entirely digital. The overlap of academia with practising photographers still continues; the recent Bristol Photography Festival was organised by part time lecturers and other tutors at Falmouth command much respect for their own work.
 
I also did a workshop at Duckspool with JB. I had attended another workshop with Harry Fearn in north Wales before that and it was Harry who told me about Duckspool.

I just wish I had discovered Duckspool earlier and attended workshops with other notable photographers.
 
gbillett said:
Small world isnt it. I knew Peter and Sue only vaguely, my son went to the same school as their children....it was quite a strange feeling knowing that world famous photographers were meeting in the middle of the Quantock Hills, just a few miles away, and I couldnt afford to join them. Its great that Peter's website still exists to tell the grandeur of all he achieved.
Click to expand...

I wanted to do a Fay Godwin workshop at Paul Hill's Photographers Place, however there were waiting lists. Paul suggested a workshop with himself at Duckspool, where the barn had just been converted and opening. That first workshop was cancelled due to lack of numbers, Peter gave me a call two days before, and I went on one with Peter Cattrell, at a discount, Peter was printing for Fay Godwin at the time.

Ian
 
Keith tapscott. said:
I know very little about Peter Cattrell other than he printed for Fay Godwin.
What sort of photos did he make?

I would be interested in his darkroom methods.
Click to expand...

Peter Cattrell is a Scottish photographer, and lecturer, based in London. Like Fay Godwin, and many others, his darkroom techniques are remarkably similar to John Blakemore's.

When I did a Fay Godwin workshop at Paul Hill's she told us that her photography made a huge step change after she had attended a Blakemore workshop, in particular her printing skills. So much so that before the 2nd edition of her book Elmet with Ted Hughes was published, she reprinted all the images.

Ian
 
John’s printing was remarkably straightforward. When I saw it, he used two-bath development for finer control of graded papers. If there was a secret, it was his very careful evaluation of each successive print. He wasn’t afraid to reprint until he was satisfied. I don’t know about his practice with variable contrast papers, which were considered inferior at the time.
His negatives were developed to be “flexible”. In practice, this seemed to mean that they looked rather flat. Exciting negs did not lead to exciting prints; he aimed for boring ones.
His “party trick” (I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but that the best description) was to produce a whole set of prints from the same neg, all aesthetically valid and all very different, dark to light.
So, John did nothing that I couldn’t do already. If there was a secret, it lay in his constant, careful and sensitive inspection of the image.
 
Back in 1989, when I went on my first Blakemore workshop John was printing on Agfa Record Rapid, as were Peter Goldfield, Peter Cattrell & Fay Godwin. The only other high quality fibre based paper at the time was Ilford Galerie.

Galerie being essentially a Bromide paper didn't have the flexibility of Record Rapid which was Bromochloride. Peter Goldfields trick was to cut a sheet of paper into strips and expose each for a different time, then cut each strip into squares. Then in the developing tray he would pull squares of roughly equal visible density out after maybe 15, 30 45, 60, 75, 90 etc seconds. After fixing and a quick wash he'd lay the square out with the roughly matching densities. You were struck by the quite different tonal colours.

So by varying the development time you could control the warmth of the paper, also the contrast, something you can't do with a Bromide paper.

John's approach to negatives was the same as Ansel Adams and Minor White, a negative that is a score that can be interpreted in different ways, which makes a lot of sense.

I'm not sure the exact year Agfa dropped Record Rapid replacing if with Multicontrast Classic, possibly 1993, I know I had to use MCC to make the final prints for a 1994 exhibition. It was equally as good, and flexible, as Record Rapid (last version with no Cadmium). The early Ilford Multigrade Fibre based paper was not in the same league. When Agfa pulled out completely I switched to Forte Polywarmtone which I think is the best paper I've ever used. I have a few sheets left.

Ian
 
Here is a reference to Peter Cattrel:

He has written a photographic textbook, too:

I forgot to mention that John B did mention using flashing as another control in printing. He didn't demonstrate it while I was there. His method was to flash several sheet before a printing session. Can't recall how he judged the amount of flash. Experience, perhaps?
 
David M said:
Here is a reference to Peter Cattrel:

He has written a photographic textbook, too:

I forgot to mention that John B did mention using flashing as another control in printing. He didn't demonstrate it while I was there. His method was to flash several sheet before a printing session. Can't recall how he judged the amount of flash. Experience, perhaps?
Click to expand...
Thanks. I won't ask any further questions about Peter Cattrell as the thread is really about John Blakemore.

I will do some more searches.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top