How is a sense of hidden beauty explored in the work of Robin Friend?

Jersey is an exceedingly small island with a lot of beauty but there are so much more than all the tourist places. these extra special places just require a bit of exploration to find even greater views that I will try to capture with my camera to create impact full images about the hidden beauty in the mundane everyday parts of jersey.  

To do this I will go out with my camera to sites/places that have been forgotten/ less talked about. I will do this to try and find the less seen beauty of the island. this area of work interests me because I have a great passion for exploring and finding new and interesting places. all my life I have spent adventuring Jersey through all its valleys, castles, coves, cliffs, woodlands, and buildings in search of something interesting to make it worth the time. Every time there is a view, a moment, or an object that I see/find that makes it worth the effort of going out to try and find it. I come home from these little expeditions feeling accomplished at what I have seen, heard and experienced. It is like a hunt for the beauty in the mundane, boring environment that the rest of Jersey drives by daily never thinking to climb though a bush to see what is on the other side or climb up a wall to see the view from the top. 

Through this project I hope to prove beauty can be found and captured, everywhere and anywhere if you just look. I am looking at Robin Friend I am particularly interested in his book “bastard countryside” which feature images from 15 years of his own personal explorations. These images mainly focus on unkept areas of the countryside. Where humanity has affected the landscapes and left it to decay into the natural environment. this creates visually pleasing images that portray a very un-appealing truth that documents how time and nature effects the degradation of manufactured objects and structures into the land. 

Robin Friend aged 40 was born in the Uk but lived in Australia from an early age. He moved back to the Uk with his family when he was a teenager then went on to study photography at university of Plymouth.  

This projects link to my other projects because I have already explored many other less seen areas of Jersey for other projects throughout this course that have related to different themes/assignments at the time but are remarkably like this project. 

I went to three location that have been left to decay back into their landscapes. I spent along time photographing each area from many different angels and views I ended up with 569 images that I then sorted using light rooms star system. from these sets of image I used 43 of my best edited images to create a photo that shows the beauty in the decaying fabricated environment.

I made one book with my final set of edited images, then I made another with the same images to see if I could find a way to display them in a better way.

this is the first few pages of my first attempt at my photo book. at first I liked this design I tried to use images that would contrast against each other on each page and yet they still all have a link between them.

this is the first few pages in my second attempt at a photo book I like this on more because I feel there is more contrast between the images on each page. I used a triplet on one of the pages because I felt this was better than the 4 grid of images I used on the previous book because it feels less cramped when viewing the pages.

this is the last few pages of my first attempt at a photo book at first I did like how I juxtaposed a full bleed images against a smaller image on every page. however I believe it can sometimes be more impactive to give a more variety of image sizes against each other.

this is the last few pages in my second attempt at a photo book I like they way I have displayed these images better than my first attempt because of the 2 page spreads I have incorporated towards the end of the book. I still used full bleed images contrasting against smaller images. which I feel gives a interesting perspective to some of the images. the final image on this page I am very happy with as I took it at the end of my last shoot as the sun was setting, I feel it wraps up the book nicely.

for my final book I have chosen my second attempt because I feel I have better displayed my images through out the book. I also moved my double pages spreads top be in the middle and end of the book as a link through out the book.

I have produced a virtual gallery of some of my best images from these shoots. I created a gallery using Artseps online website then put final images in to create the effect of seeing my work in a real exhibition.

This is one of my final images that i took of a wall inside the old hospital grounds. I edited this image to reduce the saturation and increased the vibrancy to bring out the greenery climbing the wall. I like how the man made structure of the wall is much duller and darker except for the little pieces of plans growing through the cracks that will eventually completely overtake the wall and bring the granite back to nature.