Joe Cornish Gallery

Since I was passing near to Northallerton on my way to Mount Grace Priory, I decided to stop in the town and have a look around, as I've never visited before. It also gave me chance to explore the Joe Cornish Gallery. Joe Cornish is a well known landscape photographer who lives in North Yorkshire. I used to really like his work and still think it's good, though my tastes have expanded as I've become a more passionate photographer myself. It was interesting to look at some of his photos that I haven't previously seen, including a selection of iPhone photos.

There was also an exhibition in the gallery that I was keen to see: InnerVisible, abstractions of the natural landscape by Graham Cook. My own recent experimentations with abstracts have made me more interested in this kind of impressionistic work.

The gallery is an 18th century building called Register House, in the centre of Northallerton. In some ways it's a nice intimate setting, with a warren of small rooms over several floors, showing Joe's work and that of some other UK landscape photographers. It is also a café and that, for me, was where the problem lay. All the rooms were full of people eating and having coffee, meaning that to see many of the photos you had to stand and peer over people's heads. Not what I expected. It felt awkward to me and killed the enjoyment of being able to really study the works on display. I was astonished too to see how much £ the prints command! Proof that to make it as a photographer these days is more about exposure and getting your name known than about the actual quality of your work (beyond a certain point obviously).

Northallerton itself, the county town of North Yorkshire, is a typical Yorkshire market town with a wide main street. It had a large and busy market lining the road, which made it difficult to get a decent general photo. I gave up trying!