Capturing colleagues on
SINCE the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, countless photographs have captured the plight of a world coping with the shock of a global pandemic.
But one South Wales snapper has provided a unique take on the situation, documenting the challenges of working on the frontline of one of the UK’s hardest-hit areas.
Because not only is David Collyer an accomplished photographer, he also works as a medic – and the subjects are his colleagues at Abergavenny’s Nevill Hall hospital.
The 52-year-old has been working at the hospital since 2017 when he moved from a major trauma centre in Bristol.
Aside from working on the wards, he’s also been a photographer for many years, a passion he developed after spending much of his youth spending time with press photographers at his local newspaper growing up.
Since working in Abergavenny, he had previously considered working on a project documenting hospital life – then Covid-19 arrived.
After gaining consent, he started to take pictures of the staff as they began to adapt to new working conditions, working to transform clinical areas to overspill intensive care unit facilities and dealing with the strain of long working hours, all while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE).
David said: “In terms of photography, I spent most of my childhood in newsrooms.
“I spent a lot of time with journalists. “It’s really my passion – it’s the first thing I think about when I get up in the morning and the last thing at night.
“My passion is to document everything around me – I’m very fascinated by the living condition.”
Like all health boards across the country, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board is facing major upheavals.
But David felt he had the ability to document the changes.
His role specialises in anaesthetics, which means he is able to access areas that many people don’t see.
And not just the public, but also other members of staff.
He said it’s a role that often goes “hidden” as not many people know what they actually do.
“We can work in scrubs,” he said. “We can work with surgeons. If there’s an emergency we come rushing in.
“It’s good to get some recognition – for people to understand the role and what it is.”
Through his photographic work,
David is keen to provide a rare insight into what life is like inside the hospital.
Meanwhile, he remains pragmatic about his medical role, and explains
David Collyer, who works as an ODP, has taken photographs of the working life of the staff at Nevill Hall Hospital in Abergavenny as they planned for, and treated, patients during the coronavirus pandemic he is just doing his job.
He doesn’t like to be branded a “hero”, because ultimately he is doing what he has trained to do.
But, obviously, battling the effects of coronavirus in patients has been challenging and difficult.
He compares the virus hit to a tsunami – in some ways you can see it coming but you have no idea exactly when it’s going to hit and what it’s going to be like.
The pictures give a brutal insight into this day-to-day reality: staff headto-toe in PPE; the exhausted faces; the extremely busy wards; tired staff slumped on the floor, wondering what the next day will bring.
One image even shows a young nurse, whom David says only qualified this year, sitting inside a cardbox box following a lengthy shift.
The exhaustion is clear.
“We see many pictures of patients so I decided to turn the camera back on ourselves,” he said.
“At the end of the day we go to work to do just what we are trained to do. This is what we are trained for.
“We have had lots of doctors who