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  • Waves Crashing against the rocky granite coast at Cape Cornwall, St Just, Cornwall. The Brisons offshore stacks can be seen in the distance. Years of relentless attack by the Atlantic Ocean has rounded much of the hard granite stone shoreline.
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  • Waves Crashing against the rocky granite coast at Cape Cornwall, St Just, Cornwall. The Brisons offshore stacks can be seen in the distance. Years of relentless attack by the Atlantic Ocean has rounded much of the hard granite stone shoreline.
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  • Millions of years and perpetual attack. These huge bastions of hard Cornish granite may be smoothed by a process of attrition, but they will never be defeated !
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  • These huge, gorgeous granite boulders have been formed over years of pounding and smashing by the Atlantic waves. Though some are half the length of a grown man's body, these boulders are like toy marbles in the grip of Sennens biggest storm waves. Even the solid granite breakwater has been worn smoother over history due to the attrition by the sea's load.
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  • I couldn't help but be impressed by the beautiful rounded shapes of these granite marbles, created by years of being rolled around in this organic looking chasm. This image was used as the main publicity image for the Celtic Connections touring exhibition which started in 2005 at Oriel Ynys Môn.
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  • The beautiful smoothed granite rocks looked like giant pieces of disused bubble gum, soaked and literally glowing in stunning evening sunlight facing the Atlantic Ocean
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  • August on Dartmoor. After months of earth-scorching summer the elements during our three day trip to this magical national park in the South West turned out to be mixed to say the least. Brooding clouds hovered over dark hillsides and the sun glowed rather than shone, through thin patches of grey blanket overhead. <br />
<br />
I was taken aback by how lush the valleys were, so much more tree cover than here in North Wales. The variation in the vegetation was also surprising, creating quite a tapestry of earthy greens and browns. Of course, the most exciting aspect of this landscape for me, is the granite beneath, sometimes punching upwards as huge sculptural tors, monuments amidst acres of silent grasses and foliage. I find Dartmoor uniquely spiritual, enchanting even and I can’g wait to return.
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  • Nothing is forever. The rock, millions of years old, is gradually being eroded away, battered and smoothed by repeated attrition from waves, pebbles and sand. There is beauty in it transformation, smooth forms now replace harsh jagged edges and identifiable shapes, faces and objects appear as joints are exploited and widened. <br />
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A huge chair has appeared in a tiny cove, pale and curvaceous like the woman of the cove. At each low tide she can be seen sitting there on it’s rounded granite cushion, surveying her environment, enjoying the breeze in her hair and the warm sunshine on her naked skin. <br />
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This chair has seen many angels, healers and mermaids and although this woman is the blink of an eye in geological terms, when she has returned to the sea another wonder will take her place. It’s always been the way at this magical cove.
    The Chair Woman
  • Incredible early morning light in hidden coves in West Cornwall. The hard granite had been smoothed and rounded by a millenia of pounding by the force of the Atlantic Ocean which hits this coast full on.
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  • The imposing granite rock mass of Kenidjack Tor looms out of the fog on a damp Autumn morning on the Cornish moorlands, from where you can normally see the Atlantic Ocean on three sides.
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  • Cornwall, mid February. The weather had been stunning all week but the sea was still throwing some massive waves at the coast. Even in the relative shelter of the cove itself, huge granite boulders await further attrition from the advancing Atlantic swell.
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  • Cape Cornwall headland near St Just projects into a treacherous stretch of Atlantic Ocean here in South West Cornwall. In the cove to the North of the point, huge granite boulders have been rounded and smoothed over eons and await the powerful waves each high tide.
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  • Cape Cornwall headland near St Just projects into a treacherous stretch of Atlantic Ocean here in South West Cornwall. In the cove to the North of the point, huge granite boulders have been rounded and smoothed over eons and await the powerful waves each high tide.
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  • Pedny, as the beach natives call it, a phenomenally striking beach with white sands, granite cliffs and crystal clear waters, facing across the Atlantic down to the Antarctic! Only accessible at very low tide or by scrambling down a steep footpath and rocks to the beach itself. For years thankfully the sole domain of hardy naturists and keen rock climbers (not necessarily both, though I did tick that box!) but now due to exhaustive use of it's location in tourist advertising, is quietly losing it's magic, with teams of neoprene clad families with body boards, tents, wind-breaks and picnic boxes braving the descent to textile cover the once free beach. Fortunately, at high tide the beach really does get cut off by the huge Atlantic ocean, and this forces away most of the crowds leaving small patches of bare beauty, and peace and quiet once again, save for the few who know the secret escape routes
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  • Waves on an incoming tide  flow around large granite boulders on the shoreline of the Atlantic Coast at Sennen, West Penwith Cornwall.
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  • Within the expanse of hot white sand which stretched for miles here on the Skeleton Coast, a wonderful bubbling of hard-rock granite baked in the midday sun. Small weakneses in the rock had become fissues, divinding the stone hillock into strange and beautiful sculpted landscape. <br />
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I tried walking on the exposed surface barefoot, to experience the textures and shape but my feet melted! The cold Atlantic Ocean in the distance had no cooling effect on this parched earth
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  • I have been captivated by this huge and isolated granite boulder at Land’s End since my early twenties, when I used to spend much time rock-climbing in the area. I’ve even photographed it a couple of times over the years, but today was the day when the boulder best depicted a large head and scowling face staring at the sky above. <br />
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In the darkness of present times he’s saying “Oh my God, what have you let us become?”
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  • The light dropped rapidly and here on the far side of the smoothed Atlantic pounded granite rock now looked dark and impassable. Deep rock pools contained small life forms darting from side to side waiting for the advancing high tide.
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  • Below the old quarry workings, in this granite rich bay, lie huge hard rock boulders, gradually, imperceptibly being smoothed and rounded by the constant action of wave generated attrition. The mountains behind reach almost 2000ft but here on the shore, it's foundations are gradually being eroded away.<br />
<br />
From my book<br />
<br />
"Nant Gwrtheyrn - Y Swyngyfaredd (The Enchantment)" available here on my website<br />
<br />
The deserted valley and quarrying village of Nant Gwrtheyrn, North Wales. Now restored as a Welsh language & conference centre.
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  • The superb rounded boulders created over thousands of years rolling around in this cove, were strangely and easily covered by shifting levels of grey sand. The gentle river tumbling down from the Cot Valley carved it's own niche, exposing once again the beautiful granite eggs.
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  • Large, two foot wide, perfectly rounded and amazingly smooth, extremely heavyweight granite boulders in this faraway cove are gently and regularly caressed by the softest grasses growing from between the sensual curves. At the back of the beach the grasses almost completely envelop the boulders and the contrast between hard and soft, organic and inorganic, solid and delicate, static and moveable was richly obvious. I could have spent a whole day at this long boulder cove, immersed in the sensuality of such beautiful forms and contrasts..
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  • Amazed by the stunning lines and curves of this wave smoothed gorge in the rocks. The hardness of the granite rock was amazingly smoothed into organic sensual curves by the power of the ocean swells.
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  • I could see this Tor from miles away, in every direction! It loomed, dark and strange, like a battleship on the horzon. As I got closer, it really was isolated from everything else. Only masses of wind blown grass, tangled brush wood, and hidden holes prevented access. It was a very spritual place for me, and finally climbing to it's dark, slightly green top, I felt privileged to be there, surveying the surrounding lands right down to the Atlantic.
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  • In the early 19th Century, the capstone was rotated, and the uprights altered to support it. In the process the quoit was lowered considerably. It was said that originally a horse and rider could pass comfortably beneath it. It may originally have been as long as 60 feet in length and is estimated to have been erected in 2500 BC.  In the background stands the famous Ding Ding Mine, where Cornish miners toiled hard to extract tin for world export. It's ironic that whilst we were pulling out precious metals we were simultaneously sinking ancient monuments !
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  • Sunset over the Brison rocks seen from Porth Nanven, SW Cornwall.
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  • Comical but very cute African Penguins at Boulders Beach south of Cape Town, South Africa
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  • A ship at dusk at anchor off Mount’s Bay in Cornwall. The whole landscape was dark and rather ominous looking in the heavy weather but the large ship was temporarily illuminated by a last pulse of light before the clouds closed over for the night.
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  • "Beautiful the beach may be, but faced with the full surge of a very deep Atlantic the water at this beach ranges from chilly to brass monkeys! On a sunny day it lures you in, the white waves, the glass clear water and the rippling light on the sand beneath, but there are few who stay in this water more than 10 minutes and God forbid naturists start wearing wet-suits ! :-) "
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  • Nanven Boulders
  • Land's End in a Winter sunset. Short bursts of sunlight under blankets of winter storm clouds. Deceptively calm seas nevertheless created large waves as swell reached the cliffs.
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  • Beautiful, colour-rich dusk in a cove below Cape Cornwall, St Just, at dusk, a tin-mine hewed landscape within stone, multi millions of years old
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  • SUN28 Shot Up North Awards winning entry (2016)<br />
<br />
International Colour Awards 2015 - Nominee in "Nature" category<br />
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“Early morning light passes through choppy Atlantic waves wrapping around me on this steeply shelving beach in South West Cornwall. It gives the impression of being underwater whilst the waves crash above the surface”<br />
.<br />
I’ve been back to this beach many times and haven’t been able to shoot anything like it again. I was completely alone on the beach and the sea was choppy and the waves powerful. This is the most amazing naturist beach I’ve ever been to in the world, so as is only right and correct, I was in my birthday suit as I took this!<br />
.<br />
I was using a heavy Canon 1DsMk3 and 100-400 mm lens to get this shot, nearly £7K of gear in the Atlantic ocean! What would have looked really crazy from the cliff-top was a little naked Jack-in-the-Box crouching down at the lowest point of a sand-cusp to shoot through huge waves as they rose in front of him, and then him standing up rapidly to keep the camera clear of the back-wash which went ribs-high trying to pull him back out to sea! This was one of my craziest shoots ever, but I am delighted with the result and yes this IS my all time favourite and I have No.1 of 10 hanging in my home.
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  • In this cove of high erosion from weather and huge Atlantic waves, arose order. Boulders rounded like giant eggs seemed so beautifully placed in the gritty dark sand, left perfectly even by the receding ocean
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  • In this cove of high erosion from weather and huge Atlantic waves, arose order. Boulders rounded like giant eggs seemed so beautifully placed in the gritty dark sand, left perfectly even by the receding ocean
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  • From my book<br />
<br />
"Nant Gwrtheyrn - Y Swyngyfaredd (The Enchantment)" available here on my website<br />
<br />
The deserted valley and quarrying village of Nant Gwrtheyrn, North Wales. Now restored as a Welsh language & conference centre.
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  • A moon hovers overhead as the Isles of Scilly ferry, the Scillonian, sails past Logan Rock and Treen Cliff near Porthcurno at dusk from St Marys.
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  • I spent most of my 20s rock climbing in Cornwall, from quiet and esoteric crags like St Loy, Rinsey and Carn Les Boel, to popular crags like Sennen, Bosigran and here in this picture, Chairladder. I always found Chairladder an intimidating place to climb, not particularly because of exposure or even height, but instead the confusion of three pitch routes and the wave cut step on which belayers have to stand, hoping their leaders complete the route before they drown in an Atlantic swimming pool! The funny thing is most visitors never ever get to se these cliffs, and their beautiful sculptural magic will always be the view of the sailor and the gymnastic dreamland of the climber, thank goodness!
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  • Even in this thick sea fog the crash of the waves and the advancing tide is relentless and comforting, confirming a natural order of things, the spin of the earth, the pull of the moon, the winds and the gales blowing their way around the globe. Yet I stand here on the shoreline, in one small microcosm of the rest of the planet, wrapped up in my own thoughts, my own ideas and my own emotions and without doubt my memories. Perhaps the whiteness of the fog even encourages this mental escape, eliminating everything else about me, reducing chaos to minimalist simplicity, lovely!
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  • Rock puzzles. The logical but nevertheless extraordinary juxtapositions of boulders and cliffs, pegs and holes. Here, a huge boulder almost five foot high appear to have rolled out of it's natural slot. How does anything this huge and this heavy get moved so easily other than by universal forces !
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  • From my book<br />
<br />
"Nant Gwrtheyrn - Y Swyngyfaredd (The Enchantment)" available here on my website<br />
<br />
The deserted valley and quarrying village of Nant Gwrtheyrn, North Wales. Now restored as a Welsh language & conference centre.
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  • Dramatic Autumnal evening light over perfect wave-smoothed sand in West Penwith, Cornwall.
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  • The forecast was for mixed weather but thankfully we never ‘quite’ saw rain. Here on the coast of West Penwith a river tumbles down through the boulders to join the Atlantic Ocean. Brief moments of sunshine illuminated the flowing water and everything sparkled. The clouds closed in, the wind increased and the cold intensified but my mood was as bright and alive as the view I was offered.
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  • Surf foam at Gwenver Beach, South West Cornwall
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  • Selected Print for the IN:SIGHT (Washington Green) New Artists Competition 2015<br />
<br />
International MONO Awards 2014 - Honourable Mention <br />
<br />
"In the beginning there was just rock - and then water - black lifeless water. There were no plants or birds or trees just a planet in waiting.<br />
<br />
Dark water moves from ocean to gully, almost imperceptibly, and a woman takes tentative steps towards the light”
    Movement Above Inky Depths
  • On a high narrow pinnacle, hundreds of feet above the sea, backed by even larger towering cliffs behind, appears the tiny, fragile figure of a woman. Even though the wind is gusting, buffeting her, she stands resolutely facing the ocean. She is at the most westerly point of land and without assistance can go no further. She has reached a human boundary; the sea is not our domain. Cries of seagulls echo warnings in the nearby zawn.<br />
<br />
The sharp lichen thriving in the clean sea air covers every inch of the gritty platform on which she stands. She feels it digging into the soles of her feet as she ponders the vast expanse of water before her. Beyond that on the distant horizon, her Avalon, from where dreams have appeared to her in powerful waves.
    Light at Lands End
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  • Although I am as guilty as the next person of renting holiday cottages, it is nevertheless such a great pity that these historical and stunningly beautiful buildings are no longer lived/worked in.<br />
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I have seen old photographs of fisher-women in these doorways but now it's only colourful transient tourists who bring any sign of life to buildings which have witnessed so much history.
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  • Even in this thick sea fog the crash of the waves and the advancing tide is relentless and comforting, confirming a natural order of things, the spin of the earth, the pull of the moon, the winds and the gales blowing their way around the globe. Yet I stand here on the shoreline, in one small microcosm of the rest of the planet, wrapped up in my own thoughts, my own ideas and my own emotions and without doubt my memories. Perhaps the whiteness of the fog even encourages this mental escape, eliminating everything else about me, reducing chaos to minimalist simplicity, lovely!
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  • Comical but very cute African Penguins at Boulders Beach south of Cape Town, South Africa
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  • Nominated in 10th (2017) International Colour Awards (Nature category) <br />
<br />
A huge snow blizzard sweeps over a green Irish Sea towards the tiny hamlet of Nant Gwrtheyrn, once the centre of a busy granite quarrying community on the North coast of the Llyn Peninsula, Wales. This is now a post industrial landscape of abandoned granite quarrying buildings and levels. The hamlet is now a Welsh language and conference centre.<br />
<br />
From my book Nant Gwrtheyrn - Y Swyngyfaredd (The Enchantment)<br />
<br />
This book is available for purchase here on www.glyndavies.com
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  • My first visit to this modern day shipwreck. I was delighted that I could get so close to this wreck and being alongside amongst giant granite boulders strewn with twisted metal and hull plates made me very aware of how powerful the sea really is. There was the constant creaking of metal from the sea adge as waves lifted and dropped sections of twisted metal as large as four men head to toe. It was actually a little eerie in this zawn of a dead ship surrounded by towering granite cliffs of Land's End.
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  • August on Dartmoor. After months of earth-scorching summer the elements during our three day trip to this magical national park in the South West turned out to be mixed to say the least. Brooding clouds hovered over dark hillsides and the sun glowed rather than shone, through thin patches of grey blanket overhead. <br />
<br />
I was taken aback by how lush the valleys were, so much more tree cover than here in North Wales. The variation in the vegetation was also surprising, creating quite a tapestry of earthy greens and browns. Of course, the most exciting aspect of this landscape for me, is the granite beneath, sometimes punching upwards as huge sculptural tors, monuments amidst acres of silent grasses and foliage. I find Dartmoor uniquely spiritual, enchanting even and I can’g wait to return.
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  • Bright sunshine falls on ancient Cornish fields and cattle on the moorland that can be seen fron the hill of Chapel Carn Brea, in the parish of St Just - an Hercynian granite outcrop, owned by the National Trust.
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  • Retreating off the summit as huge sheets of rain swept across the peninsula, a most beautiful rounded granite boulder stood proud against the dark stunted vegetation all round. The wind ruffled the grasses as drops of rain started spitting in my face and then the stone sphere glistened under a torrential downpour, just one of millions in it's own process of shaping and growing older.
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  • I’ve seen elephants in zoos of course, restricted, moving around in circles, stared at by the thousands of noisy visitors - such a desperate form of existence. In the 22,270 km² Etosha National Park in NW Namibia however, I was for the first time able to see these truly magnificent creatures in their natural habitat. Watching David Attenborough programs on TV is always a delight, but nothing prepares you for the sheer awe of seeing these animals in real life in their own world.<br />
.<br />
From the heavily corrugated dust track we were on, the first thing I saw was what looked like a huge rounded granite boulder over the top of a hillock, but as we drove to the crest of the mound we realised it was in fact the head of a huge African elephant standing at a waterhole! This was real and I’ve never felt so small or humbled by natural wildlife. There are strict instructions never to leave your vehicle whilst in the park, so I had to accept that looking out of the window of our 4x4 was the best I was going to get.<br />
.<br />
All around us herds of Zebra were also drinking, running & frolicking with each other. Springbok daintily skipped past & Oryx & Giraffes were all there too. Hundreds of birds flitted about and falcons and other birds of prey circled overhead. It was a visual tapestry of wildlife with so many species all measuring each other up and acknowledging the hierarchies at the hole. What struck me most was the grace of motion of the elephants. Every movement of foot or trunk was slow, fluid & purposeful. At times they were just like living statues, almost motionless, just studying the world about them & at other times when walking, able to cover big distances so quickly but so gently. I was aware that they were aware of us, large eyeballs measuring us up but not seeming irritated or intimidated.<br />
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It was hard (especially looking from the car window) to take in the reality of it all rather than still imagining it was a TV program. I also felt deeply sad that it’s only a mat
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  • On these exposed Welsh hillsides once existed a large granite quarry, blasting rock form various levels to ship to Liverpool. Nowadays the quarry is long gone, the hills are quiet, but amongst the long lush grassy hillsides you come across hundreds of old remains of the industry which once existed here, providing employment and indeed a community for the quarrymen and their families.
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  • This was the second visit to this wreck in about a year. Since the first visit the hull had broken up substantially and many of the huge metal hull plates had simply been washed off-shore. The bow of the boat that originally looked like part of a ship has now become so twisted and rusty that the ribs and structures of the wreck were blending almost seamlesly into the huge granite cliffs of Land's End itself. Even something as huge as a bulk carrier is soon reduced to a more original state of existence!
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  • Looming out of the fog-shrouded barren landscape thrusts a granite tor.<br />
Once molten earth, but now ancient stone carved by eons of wind, rain and acid erosion.<br />
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A woman delicately ascends the slippery, lichen covered blocks, her soft skin vulnerable to the gritty surface, grazing her as she climbs. She stands on the summit, the highest point around, the wind whipping her hair across her face, and horizontal drizzle soaking her exposed body. She scans her surroundings looking for any signs of others, but there was no one. She was totally alone amongst the stones.
    Alone in the Stone
  • At the end of the day, when the crowds have gone, it is easier to imagine how old this place is. Long before the fishing nets, round house and life-boats, these sands and granite cliffs witnessed the dramatic beauty of the ever changing skies and seas. Everything else is just so temporary, so I like the imagination this place stimulates.
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  • For landscape photo-artist Glyn Davies, the lost valley of Nant Gwrtheyrn, hidden away on the north-west coast of Wales, was a place of mysterious childhood memories. Then he met Dr Carl Clowes, whose work in the 1970s helped turn the deserted granite-quarrying village into a centre for Welsh language and culture. Their initial co-operation on the production of an illustrated guide-book became, for Glyn, the catalyst for a far more extensive project.<br />
<br />
Nant's human history goes back at least two thousand years; this collection marks yet another period, immediately prior to the next stage in its development. Additional material from Carl Clowes sets the Nant in its historical context, some of it shaped by his own vision.<br />
<br />
But this is essentially one man's response to the many facets of this haunting valley. Glyn's rediscovery of Nant, and his photographic exploration of it, decades after his first visit, have been a complete revelation for him. As he recounts here, for him, it has meant a 'sense of past', solitude and spiritual awareness. It has dramatically influenced his response to landscape, history, cultural identity and language.<br />
<br />
If you know the Nant, you have almost certainly fallen under its spell. If this is your first contact with it as more than a name, Glyn's rich and personal images, even more eloquently than his words, will draw you to it.
    Book - Nant Gwrtheyrn, The Enchantme...jpg
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