2024 marks sixty years on the planet, and forty as a professional image maker. It feels like a very long time, but perhaps surprisingly, I still love creating images even though I’m more selective than ever about what and when I take photographs.
I was raised in a highly artistic environment by professional artist parents, Gareth & Diana Davies. As youngsters we were always encouraged to draw and paint and see the world as an opportunity for creative expression. I followed four years in photographic higher education at Falmouth and then London, before embarking on a career that has sustained me until the present day.
I’ve survived recessions, economic crashes, competition, technology changes, business changes, fashion changes, legal changes, a digital revolution, a global pandemic, health worries and most recently a forced relocation. I have seen other galleries come and go, other photographers come and go, even customers come and go, but somehow, perhaps through sheer bloody mindedness, a passion for what I do, and a confidence about who I am as an artist, I have survived, sometimes by the skin of my teeth, but I am still here, Yma O Hyd.
This exhibition is not a retrospective of my life’s work but simply a selection of some of my favourite images that I’ve taken over the last twenty years. It’s been extremely hard to narrow down a selection from the 3000 digital images that I’ve processed since 2002. Every time I finalised my exhibition choices, I’d change my mind again, so after what has been a frighteningly dark last six months in business, I’ve settled on the picture selection you see here. It isn’t a single cohesive theme, it’s a broad collection of images that have stuck in my mind over the years. I’ve never been the sort of photographer to ‘stamp my style’ over what I see, even though people have said they see a particular approach to the way I observe my world. I respond candidly and spontaneously to observations that catch my eye, they are always ‘in the moment’ and I don’t believe in waiting around for more than five minutes to capture a photograph. Life is too short and there are always other wonderful images just a little further down the road.
In December 2023 I finally signed the lease for a new gallery at Cei Llechi in Caernarfon, next to the castle, steam railway and old harbour. I opened the gallery to the public on February 19th. I feel happy once more, and as I start my fifth decade of professional photography, my mind is relishing the ability to witness the beauty of light, land, and ‘hope’ once again, rather than silently swirling within dark clouds of despair.
