David Collyer FRPS is a South Wales based photographer. He discovered a passion for telling a story through images as a teenager, spending time with the press photographers and journalists on a local paper in Surrey edited by his father.
As a documentary photographer who works predominantly on long term projects, he returned to shooting film a few years ago, preferring a sixty-year-old Leica and the anticipation of what he’s captured, to modern digital cameras.
His work has been published internationally, and has appeared in magazines and newspapers, as well as the book All in a Day’s Work, documenting hospital staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. The book is in the collection of the British Library and The National Museum of Wales.
His photo of a shattered theatre practitioner appeared on the front page of The Guardian and was one of Amateur Photographer magazine’s photos of the year in 2020. He is currently working on a further two books, and is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, as well as being named Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021. David is a member of the F/8 Documentary group of photographers.
All work is available for sale framed or unframed. Contact for details.
Testimonies
Winner of the Royal Photographic Society’s Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021
“The strongest work to come out of this cruel pandemic that I’ve seen in the UK”
Kate Bellis, photojournalist
“David Collyer offers us campaigning photojournalism from the front line of the NHS during the first wave of Covid. There is an urgency in this work, underpinned by a strong moral purpose.” Roy Mehta, photojournalist and educator
“I think this work is the first truly great UK documentary photography in the extraordinary time of coronavirus”
John Bolloten, documentary photographer