Where The Carneddau Meets The Sea - MIKE ABRAHAMS
Festival Exhibition
Location: 24 Station Road
Open: 3rd October - 31st October 2025.
© Mike Abrahams
“In 1941 my mother escaped the bombing in Liverpool to stay with Maia and John Davies in Penmaenmawr who gave her safety and love. They became like parents to her and like grandparents to me. I spent the happiest days of my childhood with them and Maia’s sister Lyn Jones during the 1950s and 1960s.”
“In 2024 I returned to Pen with the intention of documenting life in the village and surrounding area”
Penmaenmawr, with the now-stopped quarry clock; the place where once the jetties extended into the sea and where the ships came to take the stone.
The volcanic mountain where stone axes were produced in Neolithic times and then quarried for the unique granite employing over 1,000 men now reduced to 20.
The A55 where the long and wide promenade once stood. The beach huts and playground that once were, and Sambrook’s cafe that served us with ice cream and entertained us with its shooting gallery and juke box.
The well-to-do who came in the second half of the 19th century inspired by Prime Minister Gladstone, who chose Penmaenmawr as his retreat.
© Mike Abrahams
Dwygyfylchi, once home to two hill forts and now to the Dwygi Dashers.
The Carneddau mountains where the sheep and the wild ponies roam.
The granite that bounds these two villages with headlands jutting into the sea at either end of the coast and to the rear the Carneddau that defines this place.
© Mike Abrahams
We are thrilled to be sharing a selection of Mike’s ongoing new work at this year’s Northern Eye Festival.
Mike Abrahams started his career as a freelance photographer in 1975. He has worked regularly on assignment for both the leading British, European, and American newspapers and magazines. These include The Times, The Observer Magazine, The Independent Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, The Telegraph newspaper and Magazine. L”Express, Le Monde and Liberation in France, Der Spiegel and Stern in Germany, Fortune and Forbes in the US.
In 1981 he was co-founder of Network Photographers a group of young photojournalists who pooled their resources with the aim of documenting the world around them and providing mutual support in their endeavour to produce compelling social documentary work.
Mike Abrahams has produced major bodies of work in Britain, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Africa, India and Cyprus. He covered the collapse of Communism in Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.
His work “Faith” covered Christian devotion through 14 countries and was he awarded a World Press Photo Award, Daily Life for that body of work
In 2024 his book “This Was Then” was published by Bluecoat Press
All festival exhibitions are FREE to visit.