I am talking with the amazing Joe Cornish, a landscape photographer known for his woodland images at this years creative light festival. Joe gave a talk and led some outdoor workshops during the festival and it was his spirit of kindness and generosity that really grabbed me. We also talk about how community and connection can inspire and influence our creative process, a concept embodied at the Creative Light Festival.
Talking through the importance of gratitude and generosity in our creativity. It was a real honour to spend time with Joe Cornish.
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I am talking with the amazing Joe Cornish, a landscape photographer known for his woodland images at this years creative light festival. Joe gave a talk and led some outdoor workshops during the festival and it was his spirit of kindness and generosity that really grabbed me. We also talk about how community and connection can inspire and influence our creative process, a concept embodied at the Creative Light Festival.
Talking through the importance of gratitude and generosity in our creativity. It was a real honour to spend time with Joe Cornish.
Sign up to the next Creative Light Festival here:
https://creative-light.co.uk/
Sign up to my newsletter to hear first about new retreats:
Follow me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/margaretsoraya/
Join my online Creative Haven community :
https://creative-haven.newzenler.com
I'm just back in Harris after running the Cornwall retreat and coming off the back of that onto the festival, the Creative Light Festival, which this year was in Avimo and Lock Inch, and I've had this kind of pause, this gap afterwards, because I have been creating the next two years festivals and they will be released shortly onto my newsletter and hopefully you'll be able to join me in future years. So I'm just getting round now to editing the clips that I made during the festival. I wanted to release something earlier but I wasn't quite sure how to put the holding into words because it was so emotional. It was the sense of closeness amongst everybody after we left and I think we maybe all felt that a little bit. So I'm getting round now to I'm just sitting here and I'm going to be editing the clips from the festival so I can take you along a little bit and share some of the highlights and some of the recordings.
Speaker 1:I did not manage to record all of the talks or speak to as many people as I would have liked to, because the time just went by and my focus wasn't on recording.
Speaker 1:Actually, mally Davis was there and he is making a film so and I'd purposely done that because I learnt from previous years that my focus is on everyone who is attending and not on recording or making films. So I got Mally Davis in to do that for me, but I did record and speak to a few people who were there and managed to speak with Joe Cornish just before he was leaving to go home, and I wanted to share that with you first of all, and then I will release some more episodes with the other speakers on. So I hope you enjoy the conversation that I had with Joe Cornish beside the lock at Lockinch. I've got Joe Cornish with me just now and Joe's been with us for the entire three days of the festival, which has just been a delight. So I just wanted to quickly catch up with Joe on some of his thoughts about how it's been to be here for these three days at Lock Inch in Avimore.
Speaker 2:Hi Margaret, thank you. One thing I wanted to say right away is it's been an absolute joy and a privilege to be here, I must say, and not something I would have expected, probably because these events are very rare in our community. And in fact, community is a point to discuss, because, if I think back on my very, very long career, a landscape photographer's life is often a solitary one, so much of the work that we do is in relative isolation. I've been lucky enough to lead lots of workshops into us over the last number of years decades actually and so that gives you a little bit of a well, much more contact with other people who are like-minded and what you might call searching for the same sorts of things in their lives. But to have had this experience with this wonderful group that you brought together has been an absolute delight.
Speaker 1:It really struck me as we were all talking, that a lot of us here are actually introverts. It was quite a big thing that was going on actually, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:It was. Yeah, it was Funny actually, because I think you and I talked about that briefly in the first evening and then Sean used exactly the same word in his talk.
Speaker 1:It's important to remember that when we're creating, maybe we need to be. We're using that introvert side of us so we're embracing that time alone while we're creating, but then, when we come back, we need the community. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:It does. I think there's. I think, fundamentally every human beings are rather like dogs or back animals. We do need each other as well, and the different personality types are obviously very varied among human beings, but it is a sort of a bit of a common thread with nature photographers to be quite introverted.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have worked with groups of social photographers once or twice and it's a very different scene indeed because, on the whole, people are social photographers, wedding photographers and so on have to be very outgoing and that's part of their gift is to be able to communicate with people, and the photography is almost a reflection of that, whereas I think for us it's the we find solace in the natural world and our relationship with it and in a way, that's our gift to you know, to try to focus where we ever we possibly can on the joy and the solace and sometimes the reflection of despair that it may bring, because all aspects of human emotion can be reflected in art, and so I think we've seen some of that over the last few days. I must say it's been a real amazing to be able to present with people like Young Mark and Rachel, of course, who's just an incredible photographer, and Sean, who I knew already, and I'm really grateful for that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just been a great mix, hasn't it?
Speaker 1:It's just lovely and it's been nice to see the different styles, and, but for me, the biggest thing has been this is what you just touched on there that emotion, the side of everybody that's coming here feels safe, I think, and that's why we're coming together in this place, where people are opening up and understanding the importance of taking time out and thinking about the things behind the creativity rather than just going straight to the create part. So I kind of sort of feel that everybody here is sort of the world together in it, aren't we?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's absolutely. It's a very non-judgmental kind of atmosphere, which is lovely. Everybody's enthusiastic and pleased to be here and huge credit to you for that.
Speaker 2:One thing, just as you were talking, I was thinking that one of the common threads with all the speakers and I think would be true probably for everyone here is that childhood is both a source and a reflection, and it's a source of who you are, where you come from, your ideas, your passions, your loves, and also an opportunity, when you, when you, create, to remind yourself that you're not trying to please anyone else, but simply find your voice. And your voice often actually emerges from childhood, however difficult, and sometimes it is a dark place too, that was. But acknowledging that special who you are, you know, begins very, very early on in your life, is an important thing, so I felt that was great, that that was a common thread and none of us consulted about it beforehand, by the way. It just sort of happened naturally, didn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I found that amazing. Actually everybody started with this bit about the childhood and how it's influenced them, and without talking to each other about it. But actually it was really interesting and that's I think it was really interesting to see how everybody's childhood did influence as they got on, and often it was this joy there was a joy that people found in their childhood that they kept with them into the, into where we are now and what we were expressing, and it's the same for me actually it's a joy of being by the sea as a child and the joy of going to Holland and being on the beaches out there. I just, I just loved it, so it stayed with me all my life and it's still that place of joy so.
Speaker 1:I also thought that was really interesting and it was just, it's just been.
Speaker 2:It's been lovely to hear all those different stories, so good to know there is common ground, even though everyone's an individual, obviously. But by being able to share those thoughts and experiences, I think it it's a very liberating for, perhaps, people who are feeling a little bit defensive or closed, in that they can they too can find a little bit more of themselves from other people's experience, which is how we all learn, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and what's been really nice is, I think, there's been a generosity spirit as well from yourself, actually generosity of time, I think.
Speaker 2:I'm just the oldest. I feel like you know, over over the years I am certainly when I was younger, like most young photographers you feel very motivated and and something quite protective of your identity and my trying to build a career and and be a strong person and not and not worry about anyone else and and actually, of course, the the more you give away, the more you actually grow in strength in lots of ways. So I feel that, having reached the age I have, it's much, in a way, it's become easier too, and I've appreciated how people reflect back. I think to some extent you do get back what you give out, and so it's totally non-transactional for me. But I've been very touched by the words of her back from people as well, and yeah, so I'm grateful for that. But I don't want to focus on that at all because it's not about me and actually that's for me. That's been one of the ways I've learned to deal with my introversion. My own work is focused on the natural world.
Speaker 2:It's not focused on me. My favourite photographers are the ones actually generally where you see you have a revelation for the subject matter and the photographer themselves have almost disappeared in the process, if that makes sense. So that's just an aspect of my preference. But I love the fact that there's so much creativity in this group, all sorts of different sorts of expressions being shown, and it's been fun looking at, as we've been out in the field looking at people's pictures. Everyone's different, everyone.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, and I hear that you enjoyed the location so much that you're going to come back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, that was a surprise. I was looking forward to coming to the Kengolmsen, because it is amazing in the autumn and very magical. But yeah, this morning I went out. It was today is the day the clocks went back, so there was a sort of free hour before breakfast this morning and I went out for a quick walk. And my quick walk turned out to be a slightly longer walk than I expected and I found myself in what I can only describe as a paradise woodland beside the lock here, which I was totally unexpected, and I think you weren't even aware of it either. So what a discovery, and there's nothing more exciting. You know, one of the things about landscape photography that seems to be very common these days is that landscape photographers research their work very thoroughly before they go out. They look at Google Maps like know what they're going to see before they even seen it. And yet the most exciting thing in life is to discover things unexpectedly, and that was one of those.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I did take that walk, so I was down there a few days ago, but I was down on the shoreline so I was just further down. You took the high road.
Speaker 2:Yes, I took the water which is quite telling, isn't it? Well, I was pretty much an expression of different personalities. Not that I don't love the water, because I absolutely do, but I am so intrigued by woodland and especially for the last 10 years I've made a not a personal mission, but I've had a very good friend, simon Baxter, in Gisborne. Simon's inspired me or these much younger than I am inspired me to look at woodland more deeply and it's sort of become an agenda for me. So I naturally drawn into the trees, yeah fabulous.
Speaker 1:Well, your spirit and your kind nature and the giving, the way that you give to other people, has just been it's had an influence on everybody here, so I just wanted to thank you for joining us this year.
Speaker 2:It really has been my pleasure, thank you you, you, you for joining us this year. It's been really has been my pleasure. Thank you you.