Saturday 11 December 2010

Joe Cornish

Whet to the Joe Cornish lecture held by Burton College last Wedneday evening,  It was a very enjoyable lecture  where he talked about his life as a photographer from his early beginnings to present. He talked about his influences, his passion and his reason for why he is a landscape photographer.

Joe spoke about his camera equipment and said that you don't have to have the kit to take good pictures! I disagree with him to some extent, my reasons are if the kit didn't mater then he wouldn't be lugging a rucksack full of equipment up a mountain he would have a point and shoot in his top pocket,  In my opinion I think he is partly right, you don't need kit to take a picture with good location, composition and lighting, however to take quality pictures you need the right kit to get resolution, tonal range, depth of field, sharpness on the image and colour rendition.

I think what came out of the lecture most was the time and dedication that is required to get the images he gets, he spends days or even weeks at one location just to get one shot with the right lighting and weather conditions. Here is a link to his Light and Land work which just says it all http://www.lightandland.co.uk/

It 's basically what 'Mr Steve' our lecturer said  which was confirmed by Joe, to get a good image you need the following key things
  • you need to know your equipment inside out, what it can and cannot do
  • you need the equipment to be able to do the job
  • you need to have commitment and passion 
  • you need to have the eye to see and compose images
  • you need to be in the right place
and the most important one in my opinion is 
  • Take pictures, when ever you can, practice, practice practice practice..... if you do this one thing everything else will fall into place.
Finally I think one of the things that came out of this lecture is the fact of time, if you go to a location and expect to get the same images quality as Joe they you will always be disappointed, or extraordinarily lucky, because this is his profession, he does this every day he is practiced in his craft (where as we play at it) and he does this every day, even on his 50th birthday.

Dedication!

1 comment:

  1. Hi
    Good to see that you can also see the attitude and drive that is needed to succeed in photography, its not just about the kit, etc. No good having a nail without a hammer!!

    Steve

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