… there are jewels to gather, but with the eye only, a hill lights up suddenly, a field trembles with colour and goes out in its turn, in one day you in can witness the extent of the spectrum and grow rich with looking (The Small Window, RS Thomas)

English photographer John Blakemore wrote the above poem into one of his handmade photography books—personal, tactile creations for his images not intended for exhibition. RS Thomas, the Welsh poet who penned The Small Window, was known for wandering the hills of Wales as Blakemore had once done when he lived in Wales near the Mawddach Estuary; Blakemore later returned to document those jewels on film. The poem was an apt choice, for it highlights one of Blakemore’s most astonishing talents—he is ceaselessly attuned to the deep pleasure of seeing, in ways that many of us do not take time for or have forgotten how to do.

John Blakemore was one of the greatest British photographers and darkroom printers of the last half century, he died on 14 January 2025, aged 88.