Robin Friend

“I grew up in Ascot Vale. At the bottom of the hill where we lived, a creek had been realigned to prevent it from flooding. Huge concrete slabs on either side created an artificial channel that stretched as far as the eye could see. My friends and I would set off on our bikes, with the creek on our right and the city behind us. We would spend the day exploring beyond the suburbs until eventually the sewers, motorways, reservoirs and backyards began to give way to the natural flora and fauna of the Victorian bush. We watched the balance of power shift; two different worlds combining to give birth to another. Victor Hugo described this as “that kind of bastard countryside, somewhat ugly but bizarre, made up of two different natures.”

This photograph is from my series the Bastard Countryside. The series explores humanity encroaching on natural space, sometimes through wanton waste of resources, sometimes the gradual random destruction of habitats from the deadly pollution of rubbish; the vast mass of unwanted stuff which has nowhere else to go. But it also illustrates the dilemma for society trying to create new forms of energy that cause less destruction of the environment and less permanent damage; even ‘cleaner’ forms of energy production like wind turbines and solar farms alter the landscape and attract criticism.

For the last ten years I’ve been visited a lot of abandoned mines in North Wales.

The more underground places I explore the more it becomes apparent that these spaces or worlds if you like, have an unusual hold over me. They are addictive and continue to exist and grow in the mind long after one has returned to the surface. They provide sensory deprivation. In losing the ability of sight the others senses are heightened; and one feels alive. The challenge of creating a photograph in complete darkness underground is a testing experience. Ropes, harnesses and inflatable dinghies are needed and very long exposures with the help of a hand held torch are used to make the final image. Because I use large format film and long exposures there is also an element of chance in how the final image will turn out.”

Emilio Cresciani

In FACE2FACE, Emilio takes his interest in waste to a personal level, making a connection between our public face and what is privately discarded.

Portraits usually focus on someone’s appearance or character but this new series focuses on our private face, that which is hidden to others. Is our true identity found in the rubbish we throw out each day?

Emilio asked his friends to collect their rubbish for the week and then superimposed close up photos of this waste onto a photo of their face. I then turned these into negatives. As an x-ray points out the weakness or disease in our body, so these expose our waste as being a hidden side of our lifestyle.

Many people found it confronting to come face to face with the volume of waste they accumulated over a week. Our consumerism leads us to think of rubbish as a necessary evil – provided it can be removed far away to a landfill or washed down the drain.

The work references 16th century Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo – known for his evocative portraits made of fruit, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books - and Vik Muiz who photographed pickers of recyclable materials in Brazil’s largest rubbish dump, the workers then collaborated to make huge self-portraits out of the garbage.

Aaron Bradbrook

Shrimp is one of the most popular forms of seafood on the planet with approximately 5 million tons being produced every year. Bangladesh is one of the world’s top eight producers of shrimp exporting predominately to the United States, Europe and Japan. Around a third of the shrimp that is consumed worldwide is being produced in on land fields pumped with salt water rather than being caught naturally. This is due to government restrictions preventing the use of rivers to farm naturally, Gabura is a shrimp-producing island located in the far southwest of Bangladesh.

Home to a few thousand where the water is limitless but not a single drop to drink. For many years floods and the rising number of shrimp farms have been the major factors pouring heavily salted water inland resulting in the deterioration of homes, lives, agriculture, food supplies and fresh water. Rice farming which once was the primary source of sustaining this village has been ruined and replaced by shrimp farms leaving this as one of the only places to turn to, for the few who can gain employment. And for the others straying as far as ten miles deep into the Sundarban to gather fresh fish have the threats of money hungry pirates and the veracious Royal Bengal Tiger to worry about.

Naomi White

Shipwrecked. Using the wind as a metaphor for both uncertainty and hope, plastic packaging is set adrift, menacing travelers from the sky as they drive down the road. Wind turbines and electricity towers form familiar interruptions in the landscape, signs of modernity and convenience, edifices which entrap wayward debris.

Distant and invisible forces have such profound affect on our lives and the lives of our children, individually and collectively. Human-driven climate change is causing rising sea levels and is driving us towards an unsustainable future. Will our children have the same opportunities as we do? What will the road look like for them?