The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
Nov2015 back issue
by John Jochimsen
The son of a Times newspaper journalist, John Jochimsen was born in 1929 in London where he witnessed the
Depression and saw out the war with his mother while his father continued to work in Fleet Street at the Times.
Leaving school at 16 he joined the government’s Colonial Film Unit, then part of the Ministry of Information, after which
he moved to its successor, the Central Office of Information. Then National Service in the RAF and an eighteen month
period as staff photographer with the News of the World. Next he was made Chief Photographer of the PR Branch of
the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
John’s progress was rapid for by his early 20s, he had been trusted with high-profile and sometimes dangerous
assignments abroad as Britain struggled to hold her colonies together as the end of Empire approached. He covered
Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh’s honeymoon tour to Kenya in 1952 when her father the King died and
she became Queen. During his four month tour of East Africa and the Sudan, he also witnessed the start of the Mau
Mau uprising. He captured political struggle and civil unrest in Malaya, Singapore, Borneo and Sarawak where he lived
with the head-hunting Dyak tribes and became involved with the pirates of Borneo. Other tours took him to Malta,
Cyprus, Libya and Liberia.
In the UK, John went behind the scenes at military installations for the Ministry of Defence, gaining a privileged view of
the armed forces at work and compiling a stunning and unique portfolio.
Major industrial and commercial contracts followed his move into freelancing and the establishment of a London studio
in the 60s. His pictures regularly appeared in international magazines, including Paris Match as he got the contract to
cover the six year building of the QE2 for Cunard.
Over the years John photographed and met countless world leaders and royalty, including Haile Selassie, Winston
Churchill, Soviet premiers Khrushchev and Bulganin, US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan with his wife
Nancy, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, The Queen and Queen Mother, the Shah of Persia and King Hussein of
Jordan.
John published a war-time adventure and romance, King’s Flight in 2010 before releasing his memoirs 80 Years Gone
In a Flash in 2011. His latest book being a picture anthology, Through the Lens of a Photojournalist (2013).
Retiring at 67 from a farm in Slinfold, West Sussex, John, now 86, lives in nearby Southwater where he has been a
Sussex police volunteer for more than 18 years. John is widowed and has two daughters, Sally and Jane (also a
published author) and two sons, Paul and Rob.
Fishing from Lake Victoria 1952.
Green Howard's Band, Colchester.
Sergeant Major of The Kings African Rifles 1952.
The Queen and Reagan in Windsor Great Park, 1995.
Carpet making, Wilton.
Front of the QE2.
Silver smith at work.
Churchill and HaiIe Selassie.
Two mast ship sailing from Plymouth.
British Aluminium. Men examining a large billett.
The Comet airliner at Entebbe 1952.
The Grace Spitfire flies over hay making in Coolham, Sussex.
‘Little Nellie' of 007 fame.
Fort Brockhurst.
Girls in national costume, Cyprus 1953.
Lowering a stretcher from an RAF rescue helecopter.
Puma of 33 SQDN landing a soldier on a water tower.
My wife, Chris.
