“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

– John Muir, Scottish-born American naturalist

Portrait of landscape phoographer David Julià, wearing a black beanie and jacket, smiling outdoors against a dramatic Scottish loch and rocky hillside backdrop.
David Julià

I am a landscape photographer specializing in abstract and impressionist photography.


 Born in Spain, I have a deep connection to Scotland and its Atlantic coastlines, the Isle of Skye and the Outer Hebrides, where the weather rarely stays the same for long, and the light can move through moods in the space of minutes. There is something in these landscapes that keeps drawing me back. It was there that I reconnected with an instinct I had felt from the very first time I held a camera, experimenting with movement and slow shutter speeds to create images in a more expressive and intuitive way.

ABOUT ME

Origins

 Photography began for me as something more personal and inward, exploring identity and my place in the world through distorted self-portraits and reflective surfaces. Gradually, almost without noticing, the camera turned outward. Being outdoors, immersing myself in the landscape, paying attention to light, colours and textures and trying to capture its beauty, started to feel like something I had been missing without knowing it. There was a quieting in it, as though moving slowly through nature with a camera was rebalancing an internal restlessness. In that slower pace I found a different kind of seeing and being.

A softly blurred, close-up self-portrait of a person with eyes closed, rendered in warm amber tones, evoking introspection and the early experimental work exploring identity through distorted imagery.
An abstract ICM photograph of silhouetted figures against a blazing orange and yellow sunset, with sweeping motion blur streaking across dark coastal rocks, creating a dreamlike, painterly effect.
A soft, painterly landscape photograph using intentional camera movement, depicting layered misty mountains and golden meadows in muted blue, teal, and yellow tones, evoking a quiet, diffused impression of the scene.
ABOUT ME

Movement and Time

 Movement is central to how I experience photography. Using intentional camera movement (ICM) and longer exposures, I let wind and tide and shifting light write themselves onto the sensor. It often makes me think of impressionist paintings or abstract art, though everything is made in-camera, standing in a Mediterranean forest or on an alpine trail or in the middle of a Scottish moor. Nothing is added afterwards. What shows up is something closer to a diffused impression, the kind of image that holds a sensation rather than a place, like the imperfect memory that lingers after a moment has passed.

                                               Explore Fluid Landscapes

the journey

An abstract ICM photograph of a lone bare tree surrounded by swirling snow and icy terrain, rendered in monochromatic whites and greys, conveying the raw, elemental force of a Scottish winter landscape.


 It was a winter journey through the Isle of Skye and the Outer Hebrides that brought much of this into focus. A solo trip on a scooter from Spain that became The Hebridean Trace, a series that emerged from the joy of exploring that distant, unfamiliar place and the feeling that intuitive movement was the most expressive and natural way to respond to it. The trace the journey left in me is something I return to whenever the distractions of everyday life take over, a reminder to slow down, go outside, and pay attention to my surroundings, whether walking among trees or sitting on a dune while the winter sun warms my face.

David Julià standing on a rocky white sand beach, camera raised to his eye, facing crashing waves under a dramatic cloudy sky on the Scottish Atlantic coast.
A figure in a blue jacket standing beside a parked scooter on a quiet road, looking out toward snow-dusted rugged mountains under an overcast sky, evoking the solitude of a solo winter journey through Scotland.

Fluid Landscapes

 I call this creative experience Fluid Landscapes. It is not a finished project so much as a continuing practice of slowing down and being in nature, one that began in the Hebrides and has since followed me through every landscape I have wandered into, always finding something quietly worth noticing.

An ICM photograph of a forest interior, with tall trees streaking upward in deep golden yellows and warm browns, a burst of light at the centre piercing through the canopy in an almost supernatural glow.
A long-exposure photograph of a calm ocean surface at dusk, with gentle wave patterns rendered as smooth silky streaks in deep teal and soft rose-gold tones, conveying stillness and the quiet passage of time.

Awards & Exhibitions​

2026 - Premis Notworking, Best Photography Project Award

2024 - Swiss Art Expo, Zurich, Switzerland. Group exhibition 

2024 - Casa del Arte, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Group exhibition

2018 - "Practice," short film, Youth Mental Health Arts Film Festival, Scotland. Written and directed by Laura MacDougall, filmed by me

​​2016 -  Genesis Landscape Photo Competition. Winner. Group exhibition alongside Sebastião Salgado's work​ at CaixaForum Girona

2012 - Inund’Art Festival, Girona, Spain.  Group exhibition


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