Image size: 20.2 x 29.7 cms
Paper size: 29 x 37.6 cms

Inscribed: (lower left) 'Tripoli 1950's'

John Blakemore writes that “National Service, a sense of entrapment, of two years stolen from one's life. A choice of occupation between fighter plotting, cooking and nursing. The latter chosen as being of some continuing use and benefit. Then North Africa, my first time abroad. Nursing duties reduced to the treatment of sun stroke, heat exhaustion, delirium tremens. The tedium, the strangeness, the beauty of the desert, the limited experience of an alien culture.

Then 'The Family of Man' reviewed in a Picture Post sent from home. I saw the photographs not as speaking of sameness but of difference. Of the disparities of wealth and poverty, of war and peace. The photographs messages from alien worlds. Possibilities of understanding, of social change. I ordered a camera from Aden (I had not previously owned one). The excitement of looking through a camera. To begin to see. Everything potential subject. People and sunsets, sunflowers and camels. The delights and frustrations of the dark room, there was one in the camp. The wonder of the first 16 × 12 print.

I was going to be a photographer.” (John Blakemore, Photographs 1955-2010, Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2011 (p16))