John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810-1882) lewelyn married a cousin of Fox Talbot, the great pioneer of the calotype process. This explains an interest to photography dating back to 1839. He gravitated to collodion in the early "fifties and became famous for his success in capturing images of vapour and breaking waves". His work conjures up an idyllic vision of life in his native South Wales, but it is not without fatalistic implications, particularly in his coastal scenes. Anticipating those painters in Pre-Raphaelite circle - Inchbold, Brett, William Dyce - who under Ruskin's influence became absorbed in the poetry of stone and rock formation, Llewelyn renders the human presence touchingly fragile. "Rocks hold secrets - secrets which generate an impulse in photographer and artist to reduce the scale of humanity in his compositions".