Photography News Issue 30 absolutephoto.com
Interview 36
Joe Cornish This Land North Yorkshire-based, landscape photographer Joe Cor ish teame up with leading outdoors writer and campaigner Roly Smith, to explore 50 of Britain’s most amazing landscapes, which are brought together in This Land. We find out what sparked the creation of such a beautiful collection of images…
You’re one of the UK’s leading landscape photographers, but what first inspired your interest in this particular subject? This “particular subject” is the landscape of Great Britain. What first inspired my interest? Being outside as a youngster, on the moors or by the beach in my native Devon, or on family holidays by the sea in Cornwall. Running around, hopping between boulders, exploring rock pools, swimming and surfing, climbing trees, the physical joys of childhood. This land is inmy blood, inmy heart, inmy soul. Having produced several books, what was your motivation behind creating This Land ? The idea was that of the writer, Roly Smith. He asked me, he pressured me, he cajoled me! Having expressed misgivings about tackling such a huge and overwhelming topic I finally agreed to do it, partly because I think it is important sometimes to take a risk, even if you fail. Better that than die wondering ‘what if?’ Did you always intend to capture the images specifically for the book? The answer (probably rather annoyingly) is
and geographically we both felt that Northern Ireland is much more part of Ireland than it is the island of Britain so we chose to focus solely on Great Britain rather than the UK. Does that make sense? I hope so, and apologies to anyone fromNorthern Ireland offended by this omission. It has to be said that focusing on the UKwould have alsomade the bookmuchmore complicated and expensive to shoot, and it would have reduced the space available, which was already at a premium. Our love for mountains is also evident in the balance of locations and inevitably Scottish and Welsh landscapes therefore outnumber English ones, at least per head of population massively. We hope enough places from England are included to appeal to the legions of enthusiastic English hillwalkers, mountaineers, photographers and landscape experts. This is a selection, so inevitably many, many wonderful landscapes are missed. We have 50 places, but it might have been 500. How much research and preparation goes into a shoot? When you know the nature of the landscape
that some images were made before the book was dreamed up, some were simply made as part of my practice as an active photographer and some were indeed made specifically for This Land . Do you plan to visit specific locations or do you tend to explore and find something new to shoot? It really is a bit of both. Once the book was decided upon and we had planned out the places we wanted to include, then yes, it was necessary to go to the places to which I had not been and explore. I also revisited favourite old haunts andmade new images for the book. What was the thinking behind your choice of locations? It might possibly look like a randomchoice, but infactgreatcarewastakentocreatebalance.We wanted to acknowledge significant landscapes throughout the countries of Great Britain, but national and regional bias anddifficulties arose immediately. The most glaring example is that of Ireland. Clearly, since it is about Britain we could not include anything from the Republic,
This land is in my blood, in my heart, in my soul
Above “This part of Hadrian’s Wall is one of the best sections to study its (now ruinous) construction and colour, and sense the flow of the landscape it once dominated.” Right “The Malverns is a unique range of hills, closely associated with the great English composer, Elgar. These British Camp earthworks and the skyline beyond have a fluidity and depth which, I think, echoes the space and atmosphere evoked in his music.”
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