Rhodri Glyn Davies worked as a television cameraman and director of documentaries while pursuing his interest in photography, exhibiting with a group of artists called Quincunx in Wales and Scotland. In 1994 he went to Patagonia to record a horseback journey recreating that of original Welsh settlers in the area. He has since returned to Patagonia many times, making documentaries in the leadup to the 150th anniversary of Welsh settlement there in 2015. His other projects include a biographical film on the Welsh climber Eric Jones, who was the first Briton to scale the north face of the Eiger solo, and series on the history of Welsh buildings, including the television series Y Ty Cymreig (The Welsh House). His film Dal Yma/Nawr is a celebration of Welsh poetry from the fourth century to the present. In 2005 he was awarded a Bafta Cymru best director award for his work on the documentary Yn Ol i Fangladesh.
Davies first met Rhys Jones at Trewallter, Jones’s sister 's house in the Vale of Glamorgan. He took this portrait there. Jones chose to be photographed with the ship, the globe and the book that possessed, for him, the quality called in Russian ‘vesch’, meaning the vital resonance or ‘soul’ a thing possesses by virtue of human attachment to it. Over years, Davies continued to see Jones and his wife, Betty Meehan, when their global paths crossed. He says ‘In Welsh there is a word, hiraeth, for heartfelt longing for a place or person. From time to time I feel a hiraeth for Rhys's good company and genuine encouragement. I feel lucky to have met him and am grateful for the interest he showed in my work as a young photographer.’
