My first hand made book from John Blakemore’s workshop

​A few days ago I completed my first hand made book! If I tell you that I started making this book in late June, you’ll realise it’s been a bit of a labour of love…

To be fair, the main reason it took quite so long to complete was my indecision about what to put on the front cover. It remained blank for many months until I remembered I’d had an idea about doing something with some Autumn leaves. Autumn was on the verge of passing me by so, at last, I was forced into action!

It all began on a hot and sunny weekend at the end of June when I attended a wonderful workshop run by John Blakemore and Dan Wheeler (Photo Parlour Nottingham). The course took place over 2 days and was as enjoyable and enlightening an experience as you could wish for. As well as being one of our greatest photographers, John proved to be an inspirational character with a deliciously mischievous sense of humour. He was very ably assisted by the lovely Dan.

I was also lucky to share the weekend with a really lovely group of photographers, some of whom I already knew and all of whom added to the amazing experience - everyone came away feeling they had learnt so much and with numerous ideas rattling around their heads…

John spent much of Day 1 showing us some of the many beautiful books he has made over the years - every size and style you could imagine - I think what struck me most was his incredible eye for a picture and his extraordinary ability to make beautiful art out of something most of us just wouldn’t even see in the first place.

Day 2 was spent with John and Dan helping us to sequence our images - arguably the most important aspect of making a visually compelling body of work. Then it was time to start making our own books - with assistance as required. I hadn’t helped myself by deciding to include images with different aspect ratios and by having far too many pictures to choose from - although I wasn’t the worst offender in that respect!

I definitely won the award for being the slowest - taking a ridiculously long time to make my book cover - with a lot of muttering (and worse) as I tried and failed to make every aspect perfect! In the end I had to leave without having stuck any of my pictures in. I was labelled a ‘measurer’ - with a mischievous and, I suspect, slightly disapproving smile from John!

It didn’t matter because I knew the sequence we’d settled upon and had ensured I’d created the correct number of pages to be able to incorporate this into my layout. A few days later, all my photos were stuck in and the book was almost complete.

For the title and the two quotes I had chosen to include within the book, I decided to print these onto the same kind of paper as I’d used for the pages of the book and then stuck these in with spray mount glue. John hand writes the text in his books - which is lovely - but I didn’t trust myself not to mess it up!

Then, after a gap of several months. D day! Having first consulted with friends Joe Rainbow and Anna Booth (for which many thanks) I managed to create my own printed reliefs of Autumn leaves onto the cover of the book! Enough time has passed, I am now rather more philosophical about the various imperfections to be found within and am actually really pleased with my first effort! More important though, I remember a really special experience and know it has given me so many ideas of things to pursue…