Robin Friend

Published in 2018, Robin Friend’s book Bastard Countryside collects 15 years worth of exploration of the British landscape, dwelling on what Victor Hugo called the ‘bastard countryside’: “somewhat ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures”. Robin’s large-format colour images scrutinise these in-between, unkempt, and often surreal marginal areas of the country, highlighting frictions between the pastoral sublime and the discarded, often polluted reality of the present

Starting from a classical landscape tradition, Friend’s meticulous 5x4 photographs are given heightened effect through exaggerations of colour and composition, embodying a friction between British pastoral ideals and present reality. In particular, Robin follows moments in which the expected narrative of the landscape is rudely interrupted: often through leakage, pollution, or the wreckage and containment of nature.

Martin Parr: When and how did you get involved in photography?

I was given my first camera by my grandma when I was about 7 or 8. It was a funny-looking thing that took 110 film. I would use it in the backyard trying to get as close to nature as possible – there were a lot of blurry