Final Analysis

Lathkill Dale, Derbyshire 1978 (from Lila) by John Blakemore

- John Blakemore

‘Can I stay in your caravan, Paul? I need to get away for a few days.’ ‘Of course you can, John.’ It was the late John Blakemore, who worked with me on the trend-setting diploma course run by Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham and Derby Lonsdale College, and on our photography workshops in the Peak District for over 20 years.

He would be the first to agree that he had a complex personal life that was fortunately alleviated by the practice of photography, of which he was a master.

At this time (1978) his work was landscape-based, so it seemed reasonable to assume that my home in rural Derbyshire was an obvious choice if he wanted to escape.

He wrote later: ‘To be alone in the landscape was a release, a return to the pleasures and pursuits of my childhood which had been lost to me.’