As a new exhibition by award-winning landscape photographer Joe Cornish opens in Northallerton, he talks to Ruth Addicott about his travels and the crisis that inspired him to take a new direction

After three flight cancellations and having to turn back twice in mid air, due to fog in the Southern Ocean, North-East photographer Joe Cornish thought he might not make it to Antarctica. But luck was on his side and after a nail-biting flight, the sky cleared and the scene that greeted him was breathtaking.

His pictures of Antarctica can be seen in his new exhibition ‘Uncommon Landscapes’ which features images from his recent trips to Antarctica, Utah, Colorado and Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. With so many images to choose from, Joe selected 15 pictures that meant the most to him and reflect a more personal battle he has had with his identity and what is happening in the wider photographic world.

Joe moved to North Yorkshire in 1993 and is widely regarded as one of the UK’s finest landscape photographers, but two years ago, on a trip to the Rocky Mountains and Colorado, he experienced a crisis and began to lose faith in his own ability and which direction he should go.

“I found it very difficult to respond to the vast panoramic landscapes. I felt I couldn’t do anything as good as what was being done by many contemporary photographers or express myself through that landscape,” he says. “The landscape became dominant and it was only when we were working in a group in much smaller, compact and more intimate spaces, such as the Aspen woodlands that colonise the sides of the mountains, that I felt comfortable and excited about the pictures I was making.”

According to Joe, it was a reaction to what he calls the "arms race" – the new generation of photographers competing to get more and more dramatic pictures with digital technology.

“My personal take is that the landscape itself matters more than the process,” he says. “I feel when the process dominates the art, it’s not what I want to do. I felt quite inadequate looking at this amazing new work coming out and I decided I’ve got to be true to myself and continue to work in ways which are partly familiar, but also a little bit more innovative. It gave me a strong sense I needed to dig deeper.”

Instead of going to extremes, such as focusing on the dramatic effects of light, Joe says he made a decision to focus more on the poetical aspect of photography through the use of rhythm, light, tone and colour.

The exhibition also features photographs from Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic which he visited in 2014. The fifth largest island in the world with a population of around 11,000, it is almost complete wilderness. One of the highlights for Joe was travelling through the sea ice and fjords into the mountains of Baffin. “Imagine Yosemite Valley flooded and sailing down Yosemite in a ship with these huge towering granite cliffs on either side. It is an unbelievably spectacular place,” he says. He also got to glimpse endangered species such as narwhal (a whale with a large tusk) and bowhead whale, which have been hunted almost to the brink of extinction.

Although he went for the landscape and doesn’t have the equipment to photograph wildlife, Joe also managed to get some good shots of penguins in Antarctica. Under strict instructions not to approach the birds or get any closer than ten metres, he set up his tripod and once the penguins got used to him, they started padding past. “After a while I realised I was on one of their route ways, but they seemed quite content and continued walking by,” he says.

Joe first went to Antarctica in 2013 with wildlife photographer and TV personality Mark Carwardine. He went back again in February 2015, leading a group as a photographic tutor. Apart from the icebergs which he describes as “immense” with ice “a colour you can hardly imagine”, Joe also got an incredible view on board ship of the moon rising over the sea.

“There was no wind, the sea had become almost millpond like calm and it was really beautiful,” he recalls. “The sky started to turn a wonderful colour as the sun set. I knew there was a full moon that night, so I said if we looked towards the anti solar point we might be lucky to see it rising above the horizon. And literally five minutes later, across the open sea, the moon arose. It was a fantastic moment because the moon was glowing and it was really low. You could see all the detail in it and because it was surrounded by snow-covered mountains which still had sunlight on them, the colours were amazing.”

It is a picture he has held back from the exhibition, although he has included some incredible shots of the sky closer to home on the North-East Coast and Saltburn, complete with the local industry and offshore wind farm.

“I love the openness of the space there,” he says. “If you wander too far it’s easy to get cut off, but it’s a great place to explore with care, especially in summer. The rock is predominantly shale and because it’s so dark and reflective, when it’s wet it can be very interesting to photograph when the light is low. It’s also rich in fossils which gives endless possibilities.”

So what’s next? Apart from inspiring others in his photography workshops, Joe is off to Yosemite in the US in May and has a new book out later in the year. In the meantime, he is hoping people will come and see the exhibition.

“I didn’t have a particular statement to make. It was more a curiosity about the things I have seen and how it has brought about a response in me emotionally, reflecting on a whole career of looking at landscape,” he says. “The pictures are an honest attempt to try to convey what I find inspiring and wonderful.”

* Uncommon Landscapes by Joe Cornish and Living A Wildlife by Chris Martin are at the Joe Cornish Gallery, in Northallerton, from May 1-30.

The exhibition launch will take place between 6pm and 8pm on Friday, May 1, when Joe Cornish and Chris Martin will give a talk entitled "Technique and Art" at 8pm. Tickets £12.50 from joecornishgallery.co.uk