Book Images

Many of my books and projects have also included photography. Below is a small selection of some of the images used in various publications.

Snatches

The following images or ‘snatches’ represent a selection of photographic work which should be looked at in conjunction with the poetry from my third book – Sawing Fallen Logs For Ladybird Houses, 2011.

“The original intention was to have the images and poetry side by side in one volume, but due to the reluctance of any of the Welsh publishing houses to take the project any further, I was forced to produce the book without images (due to high printing costs) and display the images/snatches online instead. Ah, well, so much for Welsh book publishers, grants & bursaries; I guess they happen to other people. In 2025, however, I re-published the paperback with Amazon and have included most of the original images as b/w versions.” – Dave Lewis

Note:

In 2011, Literature Wales (Academi) received 102 applications. They awarded 24 bursaries, but just 5 were to unpublished writers.

Between 2004 and 2014, Literature Wales awarded over £1 million in Writers’ Bursaries, supporting 272 writers, yet only 102 books were published, which begs the question: did the 170 so-called ‘writers’ who failed to produce a book give the money back?

More images coming soon...

Snapshots

The following images, or ‘Snapshots’, are from my poetry collection – ‘Going Off Grid‘.

The majority of these photographs were taken over two years while I was out walking around the mountains near my home. Each image was edited in Photoshop to conjure up an ‘oldie-worldie’ feeling. I’m a big fan of ‘Julia Margaret Cameron’, who was a true pioneer of photography and saw the creative and artistic possibilities way before many of her contemporaries. I’ve attempted to give these simple everyday scenes that show ordinary things a similar stamp.

More images coming soon...

Glances

The following images or ‘glances’ are taken from my poetry collection – ‘Mixed Messages‘.

This small selection of photographs were taken over many years: some are old film shots taken with a Canon 5 from the 90s, some with my Fuji X100S in 2021. Each image has subsequently been edited in Photoshop. They are included to illustrate and perhaps to bring to life the poetry that was often written after seeing or experiencing what you see in the image. They should be seen as rare escapes, as fleeting glances in this busy, treadmill modern world.

More images coming soon...

African Artwork

The following images or African artwork are from my poetry collection – ‘Africa Poems‘.

This selection of photographs were taken over many years during numerous trips to Africa. Each image was edited in Photoshop and converted to black and white. The book contains seven more images.

Anonymous Bosch

In 2020, I spent a few days looking for photographs that might help to illustrate Mike Jenkins’s fabulous poems for his new collection, Anonymous Bosch.

While wandering around Merthyr Tydfil town centre, I took a number of photographs, and then in Cardiff, I took a couple more. I dug out some old shots too. I converted the images to black and white, and the results were quite pleasing and hopefully help to complement Mike’s poems.

To buy a copy of the book, published by Culture Matters – click here.

Praise by editor Mike Quille:

“Mike Jenkins once again invites us into the daily lives of austerity-struck residents of Merthyr Tydfil and the Valleys, in this bittersweet collection of poem-monologues, communicated in a sympathetic Welsh working-class voice that has become the poet’s signature. Once again we find them coping with the stresses and strains on the social fabric caused by decades of deindustrialisation and abandonment by Capital, magnified by recent Tory cuts to public services. Nevertheless, in the face of this oppression and depression, Jenkins’ picaresque, expletive-rich speakers are defiantly talkative, witty and irrepressibly expressive as ever. Merthyr is Jenkins’ Milk Wood, his Llareggub of phantasmagorical grotesques where crushing mundanity and immiseration can only be kept at bay with drugs, humour and garrulousness.

The striking, poignant black-and-white images of Dave Lewis brilliantly evoke the setting for these gritty, singsong poems. Together they form a modern mythology of Merthyr and the Valleys, which brings to mind the nightmarish imaginaries of Francisco Goya, William Hogarth and, of course, Hieronymous Bosch, all set against a hopeless backdrop of pandemic, Poundshop and Foodbank.”

Review:

“The poems are complemented by superbly arresting photographs of graffiti by Dave Lewis, which meld with the poems and add their own grain of street and underpass, surreptitious artistry and paint-can sloganeering.” – Jon Gower, Nation.Cymru