![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/da5d209a7498a63dd04711b605f00eca.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nDavid Hurn is routinely described as Wales’ most important living photographer – but he’s not a fan of overstatement.<\/p>\n
“I’m a photographer, it’s like being a plumber – it’s no better than, it’s less useful than,” he says from his cottage in Tintern, Monmouthshire.<\/p>\n
Over the past seven decades the 90-year-old has documented everything from the Aberfan disaster to The Beatles at the height of Beatlemania.<\/p>\n
For his latest project David, who made his name photographing people, has turned to something different – the Welsh landscape.<\/p>\n
Anyone expecting quintessential images of Wales’ rugged mountains and dramatic coastlines would be mistaken.<\/p>\n
Instead his book takes in some of the country’s lesser-celebrated sites, including graveyards, council estates and even a public toilet.<\/p>\n
“I wasn’t the least bit interested in romantic sort of postcards, people do that for a living and they do it incredibly well so don’t compete with someone who does something better than you do,” said David.<\/p>\n
Instead he set about allowing various experts to suggest what he should photograph when it came to exploring the human effect on the landscape.<\/p>\n
The result – Wales As Is – is an unflinchingly unsentimental portrayal of Wales.<\/p>\n
Author Richard King, who David invited to write an essay to accompany his photographs, said he found the images refreshing.<\/p>\n
He said searching for Welsh identity in the landscape seemed to be “a national hobby and a national obsession”.<\/p>\n
“The thing that really struck me is how much we want to impose a narrative on these places,” he said.<\/p>\n
David said he wanted his photographs to explore what people in Wales meant when they said “this is my culture”.<\/p>\n
“Because whenever I asked them what they meant by the word they got all defensive which means they don’t know what they’re talking about,” he laughed.<\/p>\n
“I wish that people who wanted to talk about culture were cultured, it’s not asking a lot.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Author Richard King (right) has written an essay about Welsh identity and landscapes which is featured David’s latest book [BBC]<\/p>\n
Richard and David first met when Richard interviewed David about his experience of photographing the Aberfan disaster for one of his books.<\/p>\n