Pembrokeshire Coast
"Wildlife photographer Rhian has documented Welsh coastline for decades. When nature writer Tom joins her expedition, they capture more than images."
The Pembrokeshire coast was my cathedral—cliffs that had been there since before humans, seabirds that didn't know they were beautiful, the raw edge of Wales meeting the Atlantic. I'd been photographing it for thirty years.
"Rhian Morgan?"
The man approaching across the coastal path had writer written all over him—the notebook, the thoughtful pause before speaking, the way he looked at landscape like it was language.
"You're the nature writer. The one who keeps quoting my photographs."
"Tom Griffiths. Your work changed how I see the coast." He fell into step beside me. "I'm hoping you'll let me see how you see it."
"That's not something I've done before."
"Neither have I. But my publisher wants a book on Welsh wildlife, and I want to do it properly—not just my words, but collaboration with someone who actually knows."
The collaboration began professionally. I showed him my best locations; he described them in words that made me see things differently. We worked well together—complementary rather than competitive, each bringing something the other lacked.
"Why photography?" he asked one evening. We'd spent the day tracking puffins and were exhausted in the best possible way.
"Because words fail. Because some things can only be shown." I adjusted my camera. "You're the opposite—you think everything can be told."
"Not everything. That's why I need you." He moved closer. "The book would be lesser without images. My writing would be lesser without having seen your process."
"That's very diplomatic."
"It's very true." His hand brushed mine. "Rhian. I've been writing about nature for twenty years. Watching you work is the first time I've felt like I was finally understanding my subject."
"I'm not nature."
"You're the person who shows it to me. That's more important."
The kiss happened on the cliff edge, Atlantic wind wrapping around us like blessing. His mouth was thoughtful, measured, exactly like his writing. When we broke apart, seabirds circled overhead like witnesses.
"My cottage is down in Solva," I said.
"That's forty minutes' walk."
"Then we should start walking."
The cottage was photographer's territory—prints on every wall, equipment in organized chaos, the evidence of a life spent capturing things that couldn't be captured. Tom looked around with obvious appreciation.
"This is your gallery."
"This is my workspace."
"Same thing, for artists." He pulled me close. "Can I stay? Not just tonight—for the project. I want to learn everything you can teach me."
We made love with the sea audible through the windows, our bodies finding rhythms that the coast had prepared us for. Tom touched me with writer's attention—noticing details, remembering what worked, building toward something that felt like narrative.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"I'm weathered."
"Like the cliffs. Beautiful because of what time has done, not despite it." He kissed down my body. "Let me describe you properly."
He described me thoroughly—with hands and mouth and words murmured against my skin. When I finally came, gasping into the sound of waves, he was still whispering things I'd never heard anyone say about my body.
"Stay," I said.
"I wasn't planning to leave."
He stayed for the project—six months of coastal exploration, dawn shoots and sunset observations, the particular intimacy of people who work together and live together. The book we created was unlike anything either of us had done alone: my images, his words, something third that emerged from their combination.
"Collaboration suits us," he observed one night.
"In work or in life?"
"Both. They're not separate anyway." He pulled me closer. "Everything I write now is shaped by watching you. Everything you photograph is influenced by my questions. We're not individual artists anymore—we're something else."
"What are we?"
"Partners. In every sense."
The book won awards. We still live in the cottage, still walk the coast together, still find things worth capturing even after all these years. The Pembrokeshire edge is where Wales meets the world, and it's where we meet each other—daily, constantly, with the attention that love requires.
Some collaborations end with the project. Ours became the project—an ongoing documentation of what happens when two people who see things differently choose to see them together. The coast doesn't change, but our view of it keeps deepening.
That's the real nature writing. Not just the birds and the cliffs and the impossible beauty. The collaboration itself—the choice to look together, to capture together, to find in shared attention something neither could discover alone.