Join the conversation
Subcribe to comment rss feedFeatured Photographer
Richard Corkrey
Richard Corkrey lives in Midhurst, West Sussex. He is retired and now spends his time specialising in Woodland Photography. Favourite mediums include colour, black and white, and infrared.
Michéla Griffith
In 2012 I paused by my local river and everything changed. I’ve moved away from what many expect photographs to be: my images deconstruct the literal and reimagine the subjective, reflecting the curiosity that water has inspired in my practice. Water has been my conduit: it has sharpened my vision, given me permission to experiment and continues to introduce me to new ways of seeing.
Pretty much the smallest scrap of woodland has the potential to enchant us, whether we make images or not, and time spent among trees has certainly enchanted our Featured Photographer for this issue, Richard Corkrey. He is fortunate to live close to some stunning areas of woodland and his images – a mix of colour, black and white, and infrared – should certainly tempt you to go for a wander in the woods.
Would you like to start by telling readers a little about yourself – where you grew up, your education and early interests, and what that led you to do as a career?
I grew up in East Dorset. Being surrounded by lovely woodlands and heathland the local images have always stayed with me. Children were given a lot more freedom back then, so it wasn’t unusual to be gone for hours exploring these wonderful places. As a result, I grew to love and feel totally at home in woodland. I suppose being an only child gave me a very active imagination, so these places took on a life of their own.
I was privately educated for my first few years of schooling. The curriculum was rather weighted towards classical and literary subjects. Reading poems like “The Song of Hiawatha” and “Horatius” at the age of eight was very daunting and I hated it. I loved the imagery, though. It fueled my imagination and has stayed with me and very much shaped my artistic vision in later life.
The family moved around a lot finally settling in West Sussex. I did a variety of jobs before moving to live in Bruges in Belgium for several years, working as a night manager. On my return to the UK, I attended college to study accountancy. This eventually led me to move into IT as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.
I am also a keen musician; music has always filled a large part of my life. I played in various blues and soul bands in the 1960’s and was active on the folk scene up until fairly recently.
How did you become interested in photography and what kind of images did you initially set out to make?
I bought a small Samsung pocket digital camera which I used to document the many walks my partner and I used to do. I quickly learned that there was more to it than just pushing a button. My efforts to improve quickly got me hooked. I bought a book to help me improve, the “Digital Photographer’s Handbook” by Tom Ang.