Dreaming Difference is a 176 page book, lavishly illustrated with colour and black and white images, signed by the artist.

In this much anticipated retrospective publication, a glorious gallery of photographs and photographic projects allows you to step inside David Williams’ world and to appreciate its complexity and passion. This beautiful book is full of creative imaginings and philosophical meditations that will reward repeated visits.

Williams provides a vivid biographical account of his creative development, identifying pivotal influences including an abiding, evolving interest in non-duality. He outlines key moments in a calling that saw him propelled from a career as a musician, to a vocation as an acclaimed photographic artist. Williams’ essay is complemented by an appreciation of his work by Tom Normand, the photo-historian and author of ‘Scottish Photography – a history’. Academic and critical comments on his work expand the appreciation of Williams’ oeuvre.

David Williams is an Edinburgh-based photographic artist. He was Head of Photography at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, retiring from ECA in 2017. Prior to becoming involved in photography he was a professional musician and songwriter, employed by Ringo Starr’s publishing house. Williams’ intensely lyrical, visually captivating work is exhibited across the globe and held in various private collections. His photographs have been published and anthologised throughout Europe, in the USA and in Japan. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards. Most notably he was presented with the BBC ‘150 Years of

Photography Award’. He was also nominated for the highly prestigious Kyoto Prize (Arts and Philosophy), in Japan.

Testimonials

Dreaming Difference is a visual treat of a book… a celebration of the work of a much respected photographer and educator and a timely reminder of Williams’ key contribution to photography in Scotland. 

Ben Harman, Director of Stills

I own two of David’s photographs which I endlessly enjoy. His personal humanity is communicated through his imagery, which overcomes the technical to reveal the soul beneath.

Dame Helen Mirren

To enter the world of David’s photography is to enter a world of visual poetry and the realm of the imagination. His restless search for a form of images that convey his emotional and metaphysical engagement with picture making is compelling, and guides us towards a new appreciation of what photography might be… It is a book above all, about the beauty of the image and providing sustenance for the soul.

Professor John Kippin

I’ve been a lover of David Williams’ photography ever since I first encountered it. His work touches a deep place in us, something ineffable and ungraspable… The work is so delicate, evocative and magical… This is a marvelous book.

Joan Tollifson, author of Nothing to Grasp and other books on non-duality

David must know better than most, having been a professional musician, that being a tribute band is less challenging and rewarding than being an original. And David, through his many personal and photographic explorative journeys, is just that.

Paul Hill MBE, FRPS

Visiting Professor, De Montfort University, Leicester

… David Williams asks precisely the same effort as musicians routinely get:  you have to look many times at his pictures, to revisit them, to savour them, to allow your pace to be reset by them. He works, in effect, not by stories or commissions – but like the musician he still is – by moods gathered together in albums...

… The pictures gathered here are not about what happened on the day they were made. That is an extraordinarily courageous stance to adopt: it’s a photograph, he seems to say over and over again, but don’t look first at what it’s of. Look (if you can) at what it’s about. And that will be worth your while.

Francis Hodgson

Formerly critic of photography at the Financial Times