Biography:
Joe Cornish was born 20 December 1958 and is a British photographer noted for his large format landscapes.
He was born in Exeter, Devon, England in 1958, he graduated with a degree in Fine Art from University of Reading in 1980 and then went to America to train as a photographer’s assistant. From 1982 he moved to London working first as a freelance assistant before starting out as a general purpose commercial photographer.In 1986 his early travel and landscape photography was accepted into Charlie Waite’s photolibrary, Landscape Only. From 1986 to 1995 Cornish was responsible for either all or the majority of the photography in more than thirty travel books.
His first job for the National Trust was the 1990 book In Search of Neptune and he has worked freelance on assignments for them ever since. Since 1993 Cornish has lived and worked close to the North York Moors and has photographed the North Yorkshire landscape for over 20 years, while still continuing to photograph around the British Isles and overseas.He co-owns the Joe Cornish Gallery in Northallerton North Yorkshire from where he displays a permanent collection of his prints and hosts photographic and printing workshops throughout the year.In 2006 Amateur Photographer honoured him with their annual Power of Photography award, and in 2008 he was made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Image analysis:
This image taken by my artist reference, Joe Cornish, if taken in at sunset in England. The image is taken at a low angle as it is in level with the horizon suggesting that the photographer was kneeling on the floor to capture this image, also due to the low amount of lighting and no use of flash I think that a tripod would have been used to capture this image so that the colours could be caught without the image becoming blurry or over exposed. I emotionally like this image because it is a calm environment which is very natural and beautiful to look at. Also the orange and pick colour tones of the sky are relaxing and merge well with the predominantly blue image. The photography is also very clearly a romantic, natural landscape focusing on the sea and land. it is hard to judge the rule of thirds in this image because there is no major object making the image however if you look at the horizon It could act as a row on the rule of thirds image separating the sea from the sky. in my opinion leading lines is very important in this image because the curved line the the sand not only creates a calming pattern but also uses this factor to lead our eye through the image.
Photoshoot; Corbiere
I am inspired by Joe Cornish to go and take similar photographs to do this focusing on some of my favourite places around the island including Corbiere lighthouse. I am going to plan to take my image when it is high tide at a similar time that the sun is setting this is so that the sea is surrounding the lighthouse and I will hopefully capture the sunset reflection on the water. I will also focus on using a similar technique to my artist reference and take the image close the ground so that I am level with the water. Settings; I will experiment with iso, aperture and white balance so that I can capture the vibrant colours in the sunset as close to real life as possible.
This is my favourite image of the shoot as i think it was well planned the settings were correct to get the right exposure of the image without it blurring and the vibrant colours of the sunset come through really effectively. I took this image at corbiere just after the sun had set. i spent a lot of the shoot moving around trying to get a good angle and the correct setting which showed what i saw with my eyes. The white balance was on ‘shadow’, the ISO was 400 and the shutter speed was on 1/8 of a second. I used a tripod to eliminate any blur. this image follows the rule of thirds as the pier and lighthouse are on the right axis of the image keeping everything in the image in proportion and following lines. the placement on this image gives it perspective as you are looking out from the pier onto the landscape this also gives the image lots of depth as the pier is in the foreground the rocks are in the middle of the image and then the light house is in the background and then ontop there is the vibrant natural colours which give the image even more depth and make it a romantic landscape.
As we had previously focused on Ansel Adams and how his romantic landscapes include a full tonal range i thought i would use this shoot to experiment further with that. i think the outcome of the images i really interesting how digitally manipulating the images to black and white compleatly changes the message and mood of the images. The images are now dramatic and dark and seem liked they’d have a deeper message behind them.