Read in 2023 - 11: Still Time to Wonder

Still Time to Wonder

by Joe Cornish

Although considered a "coffee table book", i.e. one that is more about the pictures than reading material, "Still Time to Wonder" offers not just VERY good photos to look at, but also interesting, thought provoking and informative words to go with it.

Last year, visiting Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, my sister and I came across an exhibition of stunning photographs, mounted on unusual wooden frames in the former mill. In this post I mentioned the exhibition only fleetingly in one sentence, but it really left us deeply impressed.

In 2019, Northallerton-based photographer Joe Cornish started on a project for the National Trust in the grounds of Fountains and Studley. Then the pandemic came along, but instead of stopping the project, lockdown periods added a new dimension to it, making images possible that would otherwise never have come about, at various times of day (and night), in all sorts of weather and throughout the seasons, without any visitors around.

I remember that I felt as if I could just walk into some of the pictures when I stood in front of them in Fountains Mill. My sister and I have loved the large old trees in the deer park and elsewhere on the estate from the first time we came here many years ago, and it is really no exaggeration when I keep naming Fountains as one of my favourite places on this whole planet (not that I have seen all that many).

Imagine my surprise when, just before I left for my May break, my sister said she had something for me - "just so", for no particular reason. On the Friday before I left for O.K.'s (and my May Break started), my sister and I spent our lunch break together in my kitchen, and she handed me her present: This wonderful book!

My sister had managed to get hold of a signed copy, and not just signed - Joe Cornish also drew a smiling camera next to his name! I did not look at it there and then, saving it for a day when I would really have time to enjoy it properly. 

That day came this week, when I have been housebound with Covid and felt a little sorry for myself. I made myself a mug of Yorkshire tea, using my Fountains Abbey mug, and settled in my yellow armchair, covering myself with my National Trust blanket - can't get a more fitting scenario than that without actually being there, can you :-)

As I said, the photographs are stunning, wonderful, great, thought-provoking - and have made me want to walk there right away, especially in Seven Bridges Valley, a part of the park I have not been to properly in years.

The words by the author himself as well as by other contributors to the book explain not only how the project came about, what its challenges were, but also how photography at Fountains has developed historically, the context of man-made and natural landscape and architecture, light, weather... it's all in there, and well worth reading.

It took me through an entire afternoon, and I am sure this was not the last time I have opened this fantastic book.

Thank you, sister!

I recommend visiting Joe Cornish's website, and especially look at the pictures under "Homeland", there under "North York Moors", "North East Coast" and "Dales" - they will fill anyone who has ever been to Yorkshire with a deep longing for the place. More info about him can be found on wikipedia, and on his gallery's website, you can find the book here.