The Book of Aber is a personal portrait of Aberystwyth told through 170 full-colour photographs. The book is divided into 16 chapters, each of which contains a short introduction (in English and Welsh) and a range of images on that subject.
Two years in the making, The Book of Aber captures much of what it’s like to live, love, play and work in our beautiful seaside town.
You can buy the book (and prints and other goodies) from my shop.
You can download a sneak-preview here.
Here is the preface to the first edition…
Foreword
I moved to Aberystwyth from Australia with my family on the last day of summer, 2012. My wife, Madeline, had taken up an academic position at the University here and I was still dazed from the collapse of my business of twelve years. After many chaotic months liquidating the company, organising the (forced) sale of our house, and moving everything we owned across the world, arriving in Aber was like landing on a soft cloud of lamb’s wool from a distant height…
With this behind me, and the exquisite beauty of Wales before me, I turned to what I had always loved but seldom had the time to indulge: taking photographs. My relationship with photography had its roots almost thirty years earlier when I took my fully-mechanical Olympus OM1 around the youth hostels of Europe but I began to take it more seriously after buying my first digital SLR, a Nikon D50, many years later. Furthermore, I’d spent much of the previous decade teaching photographers how to use Photoshop and other tools to improve the image that comes off the camera sensor. Now it was time to put that experience into practice…
At the time of writing it has been just over two years since arriving in Wales – long enough to get to know the place but not so long as to take for granted Aber’s subtle beauty, dramatic coastline, breathtaking sunsets and vibrant pub life. I’m still discovering new places, new views, new people and new ways of seeing it all but in the meantime, this is my homage to the town that nurtured me back to happiness. I do hope you enjoy it.