Joe Cornish is one of the uk's most
respected landscape photographers
originally studied Fine Art University
then moved to washington DC in 1980
we're here 52 commercial photographer
for two years always drawn to the
countryside in 1986 he was commissioned
to produce about the founders of the
National Trust spent the following
decades you can travel in landscape
commission also which he decided to
commit the large-format photography
which marked a new phase in his
landscape work he hopes to inspire a lot
of nature and awareness of the
importance of conservation in others and
also see the natural world is a
fundamental part of our items human i
met up with him to discuss three of his
landscape images
why don't I over
it's always good to see you and get the
opportunity to talk about some of your
pictures and we've got three here today
that I think have quite different
stories behind each one the first one i
believe was shot in tourism and which
was originally on fire for transparency
but i understand you revisited it
recently to get something about a
reinterpretation yes about the first day
although it's not a radical one of the
original hows Yusei shot on on training
film on 3g provia and as you can see
it's fairly extreme into the light
the big challenging subject actually for
for transparency film because of the the
high contrast material and it is
challenging in other ways on the day
because it's a five-mile hike in me
carrying 20 kilos or so and it's in the
middle of the summer was over the middle
of the summer I mean around June
twenty-first and with transparency film
obviously you're restricted by the the
range 10 because I'm a trained to feel
myself and then you've got the dynamic
range of the paper as well when you're
making the print so tell us about that
sure that's a good point because the
dynamic range of the light in a
situation like fish if you look at the
bright highlights here which in
classical change might well be easy for
18 under deep shadows and the program
that probably about easy six or seven
yeah so at least a range of 11 12 13
stops of light which for a transparency
film which might have a maximum apparent
range of about six stops is a big
technical challenge a modern digital
sensor I could possibly just about
bridge that gap but the quality of the
signal be very very poor i use the
filter for this guy to restart hard
which helps to cut the range and yeah
but that had come down to roughly
disappointed higher you're absolutely
right in the transition to
if you think about it it's always
difficult to be sure exactly but you can
look at the tops of the mountains down
to about there and it's forgiving
machine because was enough
hey for like to diffuse and scatter yeah
and you talked about the 5-mile hike to
get to this point
how important is that aspect of
photography to you talk about those
engaging with the land thing in that way
that will pass through the process for
using it
well without something to hippyish I
think you do feel the lamb for your feet
as well as through your eyes and that
and I'm sure your body and it's a very
kind of holistic experience so I i mean
i can get out of the car and like laid
by and still enjoy my photography by I
get more out of it when I when I kind of
put it put in the physical effort to do
it as a balance to be struck and you
overdo it you know you're going to be
absolutely interested
yeah but yes i'm going to experience
like she is one of the things that makes
life worthwhile for me and so a hike
like that is that with this endpoint in
mind is this something you see along the
way you distracted a little the way by
other possibilities so you specifically
example of one more actually came to
figure out something else really the
triple doctors which was a hundred
eighty degrees in the opposite direction
to to this angle that you see here and I
mean too don't it make some pictures of
it but for me this is a composition and
the moment totally unexpected that that
was the most successful and for
meaningful mission
so with this next picture almost the
iconic Yosemite seeing so what kind of
pressure is there when you stand in
front of the thing like this to make it
your own
mm well I had that's a good question but
it is literally anything being
photographed 450 years tunnel view the
car park about a hundred feet below one
standing and your conscious of the fact
that lots of people that it not just in
every other everyday is luis thousands
of pictures made from it i think that in
retrospect you don't value what you've
done unless you feel there is something
that is your own personal take on my
machine I remember standing at Channel
View and looking at this magnificent
prospects and Yosemite Valley
disappointed and yeah and it was purely
because Ansel Adams is clearing winter
storm is like the shadow in my brain
that you know come to internal
semi-autonomous entities services are
clear or large to actual atoms and I and
in many ways that's why I i love this
picture because it does reference
clearing with distilled water though
this is a gathering storm rolls in a
clearing line and it's gotten way too
much more breathing picture which
suggested financials
I'm very happy with the fact that I've
got that you could just get his clenched
of half-time in the far distance which
by the way is not their presidents
interfering with the students always it
really got one level further bagged an
actual managed him his but now I mean
it's sure it's mostly about that be
enough
we have been slow of a cloud Valley
cloud and the mood in the emotion of
them for me of the moment the very very
minimal color and the actual unique
moment in line and in terms of
controlling that light and did you have
to use the grad this image
yes yes inevitably and three stops of
indian grad from from memory the right
one and with something like this where
you say the light was building the storm
with gathering became the you would have
taken a number of shots and how then do
you go about choosing which one is the
shot that you're going to then making
for print
I was surprised to find it was somewhere
actually felt that their that the cloud
the valley cloud might have been a bit
more interesting but it's a balance of
of all the elements from the fact that
here was only about three of mine 15-20
exposures that showed halftone and to me
that was a very important detail get it
akosha the cathedral peaks here that
combination is element it was at its
best in this strange so that's why
changes if it had been children film I
probably because of the sheer cost of
shooting you have had few opportunities
to just try it and yeah from the
beauties of traditional yeah you find
that almost freeview up tunic tank i
think so and and I don't same time it so
it can be a trap because you you can
become dependent on it so it's really
important to try to preserve that that
sense of that every moment matters
so that this last image i think you've
got quite an interesting story because
we tend to think of landscape
photography is something quite slow and
contemplative and you've got plenty of
time to wait for the image to come
together but i gather that this was a
slightly different story
well again it would be nice to say that
you know it's a great stress reliever
doing instead photography but sometimes
it can really grandpa stress levels and
I think this is a good example of that
because I i heard it come to this very
quiet beach in the Outer Hebrides one
evening with it within with a hope of
making out with a colorful sunset
picture it as you can see not a dramatic
place in terms of the actual landscape
low-lying genes in the distance and the
flat Beach beautifully clean and nobody
around me about 45 minutes later nothing
much was happening in the Sun was going
into the cloud and the color that had
been out was kind of dying often i was
pretty despondent and just started
packing down and I just spotted ish
clouded starting to serve build moving
from west to east and then this
extraordinary echoing shape started to
build and at that point bear in mind
that the large-format camera once he put
the dark side you can't see the
composition you use visualized it upside
down on the ground my screen you have to
closer the flange got the shutter and
you can make your expression and she
doesn't talk like they're going to pull
the dark side and each time i was
thinking i need to be composing take the
dogs like out openly clear exactly the
shutter and it's all moving pretty
quickly so i actually managed to make
five exposures like that this is the
final 150 exposure and I've had to move
to the camera around to the right which
one you can see that it you know
extension and like I wasn't absolutely
convinced that i hadn't clicked a bit of
the cloud until I show the film back
from the loud and it's not like shooting
digitally when you you know when you
got it if I'd shot this picture with you
know with a DSLR and it was just as good
I'd be just as happy with it but you
can't help getting away from the fact
that when you made it that way it sort
of embedded self-review brain slightly
differently in your memory
I mean probably more importantly though
it is i think that the article i
mentioned and shown it between the the
Texas Energy says that the cloud and
immediately and the beach and the pool
and the challenge on and it feels like a
kind of I mean sometimes you get lucky
Michelle Gary Player saying isn't there
you know the more practice you look here
I get and I think that the i I've been
very lucky agitated working photographer
for my life making pictures
not every day but day in day out on
assignment for years and years and years
so you are equipped to cope with with
challenging times when they arrived and
that should be so so even though i was
using equipment was completely unsuited
for this like photography in retrospect
i was i was lucky to get it