Discovering The Work of Nick Livesey

Every now and again I find the work of a photographer and wonder why it's taken me so no long to discover them. They could be working professionals with many years of experience, but for some reason, I only just find out about them. Maybe it's more difficult these days with the noise from social media. With so many images out there on social media, it can be easy to miss something important as you whiz through Instagram during your morning coffee.

Every now and again though a photograph or video really catches my eye. This is how I discovered Nick Livesey. Though I can't exactly remember how I found his video, My Mountain Healing, it really struck a chord with me. If you haven't seen it, give it a watch below:

It's a short video, but it was genuine and funny, and you could see that Nick had a real eye for photographing the mountains. After watching the video a couple of times I decided I wanted to know more about Nick and his work. After a little bit of internet research, I discovered that not only did he have a solid body of work, but he was also well known in the climbing and hill walking community, and that his character and whit are almost as well-known as his photographs!

Though I did wonder how I hadn't heard of Nick before one thing was for sure and that was he seemed like the kind of person I would like to go out shooting with.

Photographing the Snowdonia Mountains

As regular readers of my blog will know, I have a series of videos called On My Bookshelf in which I share my thoughts on some of the photography books that I've purchased. For a while now I've been wanting to do an episode of On My Bookshelf on a Fotovue guidebook. These photography location guidebooks have a been a great source of information to me and I've built up a bit of a collection of them.

When I heard that Nick was publishing his very own Fotovue book, Photographing the Snowdonia Mountains, not only was I going to pick up a copy, but I also hoped that this would be the Fotovue book that would feature in On My Bookshelf.

Most of the episodes of On My Bookshelf are filmed at home in front of my bookshelf, but for a Fotovue location guidebook, this didn't seem appropriate. What better way to review a book like this than by heading out to one of the locations in the book. Then I had another thought. What if I can get the author himself to show me in person some of those locations?

Well, guess what? That's exactly what Nick agreed to do! So I'm very proud to share with you this very special episode of On My Bookshelf, filmed on location in Snowdonia National Park, and with Nick Livesey. Enjoy!

I don’t know if you could tell in the video, but that was one of the best days I’ve had out with the camera! I’ve always enjoyed the hills, but heading out with Nick was a real pleasure. It was absolutely fantastic spending the day in those hills and mountains. The conditions were often windy and snowy, and always very cold, but I loved it.

Nick has a genuine passion for his local area. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person so absolutely content to be outdoors, walking the hills. The look of wonder on his face as if it was the very first time he’d walked up a mountain. Being able to spend the day with Nick and to share in his passion was a real privilege.

On Your Bookshelf

If you did enjoy this video, then please do consider picking up a copy of Nick's excellent Photographing the Snowdonia Mountains. Even if you don't think you'd ever visit Snowdonia, the book is packed full of inspiring photographs and lots of useful information about photographing in the outdoors. You can pick up a copy of the book directly from Nick's website:

https://nicklivesey.co.uk/product/photographing-snowdonia-mountains/

Are you planning on getting a copy, or do you already have one? Do you have any of the other Fotovue titles? Do you have a favourite location in Snowdonia? Let me know in the comments below.

My Snowdonia Photographs

No blog post of mine would be complete without a landscape photograph! Here are some of my favourite images that I captured while out with Nick.