Dark Days

I've been reading some articles in the Sunday Times about truly horrendous people, truly horrendous activities, from genocide to torture, from hunting and killing for pleasure to gang warfare and slavery,  from poverty, squalor and corruption of nations to the death of thousands from preventable diseases. I am truly, truly depressed by mankind.

"Darkness Falls" Snowdonia © Glyn Davies 2011  (Click the image for purchase details)

On one of my low days, under a gloomy blanket of dull weather with a forecast of heavy drizzle, I headed mid-afternoon for the Welsh hills. I just needed to get out, I'm on the edge at the moment, one of my edges anyway, and I needed mental space, away from the labour of running a business, the endless steering clear of business debt, of creating beauty just to pay bills - away from the proliferating spores devouring the rotting cake of photography - and away from incapable, sad little trolls which pop up ugly heads in an on-line world. I just needed to connect with something beautiful, genuine, real, elemental, natural and above all worthy.

It's funny really, but the dark weather, the impending gloom, the threat of a downpour, the complete lack of any people on the hills, the quiet, the isolation, the wet earth underfoot, the raven circling in and out of the swirling low cloud - all served to remind me that even the most wonderful aspects of my world, are often naturally dark, and  even inhospitable - so why do I think that the endlessly aggressive, peace-incapable mess of humanity should be any different ? Just as in landscape, there are many sunlit bright moments between the wars, and a mass of beauty and compassion within the human world, but it's so sad that within such a very short space of time, storms, thunder and lightning return.

There is no way to have endless perfect weather, and there is no way I can expect humans to be perfect, but I do know that in my rather blessed life compared with many, I'd rather put up with nature's awesome natural weather, than the non-spiritual stupidity of human aggression and cruelty. Isolated areas of landscape will always be my preferred spiritual home, and it's only a minority of a few wonderful people who give me any sort of hope for humanity.

All words and images © Glyn Davies 2011

Thousands of images are available as beautiful fine-art archival prints on the sales site www.glyndavies.com