Free Mines, Coal Faces is a photographic monograph by documentary landscape photographer Nick Hodgson of coal freemining in the Forest of Dean, UK, with images taken from 2019–22. In his first book, Hodgson examines this unique landscape and the fiercely independent community of freeminers. The body of work comprises 14 colour landscapes recording the evidence of mining of both current and old freemines, which book-end 45 black-and-white portraits of members of today’s freemining community and their work. The book includes an essay on freemining by local Forest of Dean writer, John Belcher.
Nick Hodgson is a British documentary landscape photographer based in London. He graduated from Falmouth University with an MA in Photography in 2020, and is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS). His first monograph, Free Mines, Coal Faces, has just been published by VIKA Books.
