Biography
Joe was born in Exeter in 1958. He studied art at Reading University, where he first came under the spell of photography. After graduating in 1980, two years assisting in Washington DC and two years assisting studio and car photographers in London prepared him for a career in mainstream commercial photography.
It never happened. His passion for the outdoors encouraged him first to pursue travel work. A meeting with Charlie Waite in 1986 helped provide both an important and ongoing source of inspiration, friendship and mutual cooperation. From 1986 to 1995 Joe was responsible for either all or the majority of the photography in more than thirty travel books. An assignment with Raleigh International in 1991 was to inspire an abiding love of wild places and wilderness, and ultimately to alter the direction of his work. Around the same time he began a working relationship with the National Trust photolibrary that continues to this day, and this experience has convinced him of the vital role photography plays in inspiring environmental conservation.
Joe knew that his first photographic hero, Ansel Adams, had built his reputation as a landscape photographer by working in Yosemite Valley as a warden for eight years. If London had been a necessary phase in his photographic apprenticeship, it was never going to provide the backdrop for practising the skills needed for landscape. Moving to North Yorkshire in 1993 was a vital first step to fulfilling this goal. Towards the end of 1995, after a frustrating assignment doing travel photography in Greece he made the decision to devote his photography to landscape in general, and wild places in particular. He began this process shooting on the Horseman SW 612 wide-angle camera, but after a year switched completely to 5x4 inch. He has been using various versions of the 5x4 Ebony field camera ever since.
The North York Moors and coast are Joe's personal Yosemite, and other outstanding landscapes of northern England have been a further source of inspiration not too far away. He also has a deep affinity for Scotland's magnificent coast and mountains, and has travelled widely throughout the UK for the National Trust, specialising in particular on the coastline. He believes he must have seen as much of the British coast from the land, as anyone else alive.
Joe has continued to be involved in books, having contributed heavily to many National Trust publications, especially Coast and Countryside, published in 1996. His first book as an author was First Light, a Landscape Photographers Art, 2002, now in its fifth printing. More recently he wrote and photographed Scotland's Coast, a Photographer's Journey, and shot the pictures for Urbino, (a hill town in central Italy) a rare departure into architectural photography.
He writes regularly for Outdoor Photography and Amateur Photographer magazines, and his work has been featured in (American) Outdoor Photographer magazine. In January 2006 Amateur Photographer honoured him with their annual Power of Photography award.
In 1999 Joe started Joegraphic, with designers Joni and Joe Essex, a business devoted to producing a range of cards and calendars. This has since grown and is now developing into Joe Cornish Galleries as a trademark. It includes the production of limited edition prints, two galleries, and embraces a publishing programme that also features the work of other fine photographers.
Joe has given lectures on landscape photography throughout the UK and as far afield as New Zealand. He is an experienced workshop leader, having led tours for Charlie Waite's company, Light and Land for a decade, and also for Inversnaid photography workshops. Photographic companies who work with Joe include Lee Filters, Fujifilm UK, Gitzo and Lowepro.