Rocks & Tide, 1977

John Blakemore is an English photographer who has worked in documentary, landscape, still life and hand made books. Blakemore was born in Coventry. He discovered photography during National Service with the Royal Air Force in Tripoli in the 1950s and is self-taught. Wartime childhood experiences and Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man exhibition inspired him initially on his return home to photograph the people of Coventry and its post-war reconstruction as a freelance, working first for the Black Star photo agency, and then in a variety of studios including Courtaulds of Coventry where he was initially employed as a black and white printer before being promoted to a photographer's position. Blakemore left the company and Coventry in 1968. In the early 1970s Blakemore joined his friend Richard Saddler as a lecturer at Derby College of Art. He later became Emeritus Professor of Photography at the University of Derby, where he taught from 1970 to 2001, being influential on the younger generation. Blakemore worked in black-and-white on landscape subjects, making use of the Zone System and much darkroom work on his prints. He has also worked in still life, including a series on tulips.