Chris Friel (born 1959) is a British photographer noted for his
abstractlandscape images.[1]
Photography
Friel was a painter for many years before turning to photography in 2006, since when he has not painted.[2] This change in medium coincided with his leaving London to live on a beach in
Whitstable, Kent.[3] He has talked about the importance of the Kent countryside and coast to his work.[4]
His early photographic work was shot in black and white. The reason he has given for this is that he is partially colour blind and "did not feel confident enough to shoot landscapes with the correct colour balance".[5] However, since 2009 most of his prolific output has been in colour.[6] He is quoted as saying that he usually shoots 1000 images a day.[7] He has cited his early influences as the Russian photographer
Alexey Titarenko, the Canadian impressionist landscape photographer
Frank Grisdale and the British painter
Kurt Jackson;[8] and other influences as
James Wainwright,
Peter Scammell,
Toshihiro Oshima, and
Luis Montemeyer;[7] while Tim Parkin has noted the influence of
Fay Godwin,
Bill Brandt and
Harry Callahan.[1]
All of his photographs are produced using digital cameras and a combination of
tilt-shift lenses,
long exposure photography and
intentional camera movement – the movement of the camera over the course of the exposure.[1] He has said "My aversion to sitting in front of computers means that I do minimal post production on images".[9]
His photographs have been exhibited widely including at the
South Bank Centre London, on the
Santiago subway in
Chile, and projected behind the
London Sinfonietta in the
Royal Festival Hall,[10] and Mikhail Palinchak has described him as "one of the finest contemporary landscape photographers in the uk today".[11]
He was shortlisted for The Sunday Times' Landscape Photographer of the Year for the last four years, and won a judge's choice award in 2011.[12]
In 2011 Friel published Moving Pictures, a collection of 80 of his abstract colour landscape photos with an essay by the Canadian art critic Ann Marie Simard.[13]
2011 also saw Friel collaborating with
Matthew Herbert on the artwork for his album one pig.[14]
In 2015 published a collection of his images in a book entitled 'Framed' published by Triplekite Books with a foreword by
Doug Chinnery[15]
Publications
Photographs by Friel appear within:
Various contributors. Landscape Photographer of the Year. Collection 2. AA Publishing 2008.
ISBN0-7495-5905-5.
Various contributors. Street Portrait Classics. Editor Zac Jenkins 2008. Blurb.com.
Various contributors. Citypulse Citizen Collection. Citypulse Publishing Santiago Chile 2009. Blurb.com.
Various contributors. Landscape Photographer of the Year Collection 3. AA Publishing 2009.
ISBN0-7495-6334-6.
Chris Friel. Postcards From Kent. 2009. Blurb.com.
^Luursema, Jan (June 2009).
"Exposure: Chris Friel". Digifoto Pro Magazine the Netherlands. Archived from
the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
^Tobias, Meyer (February 2011).
"Chris Friel Interview"(PDF). Digital Photo Germany. Retrieved 25 July 2011.
^Palinchak, Mikhail.
"Moving Pictures". Photoslaves.. (This post is uncredited, but a whois search for the domain name reveals that it is owned by Palinchak.)