Charting A New Course PUBLIC POST

Just over ten years ago, I wrote the very first blog post about The Lifeboat Station Project in which I introduced my idea to the world.

Rereading it all these years later, my excitement was tangible. I find it particularly intriguing that I clearly — and understandably — had very little idea what I was letting myself in for!

After all, the project is a unique idea. Nobody has ever attempted anything quite like it, so I had to build a basic framework to get things started and then work out the finer details as I progressed around the coast.

Once I’d made all the necessary preparations, I then published Time For The Flying Suit in which I wrote:

“I’m excited, yes, more than I can describe. However, there’s another sensation I’m feeling. Terror.“

What heady days they were. The terror was well-founded and, in hindsight, it really was utter madness. But when we consider what has been born from that madness, it’s turned out to be nothing short of an incredible body of work with which I’m immensely proud.

If you’re unfamiliar with The LSP, here’s a short film made by the RNLI in 2016 as I came towards the end of my second year on the project (see more on the Films page):

I’ve now documented 158 lifeboat stations — two thirds of the RNLI network — and some 2500 lifeboat volunteers are recorded for posterity in the photographs, films and audio recordings we’ve made together.

The LSP has featured on radio and television and in countless newspapers and podcasts.

Media Coverage has stretched right around the globe, carrying the work of the RNLI further and wider than I could ever have imagined.

Over one hundred prints from the project sit alongside some of the finest maritime artworks and artefacts of our time in two national collections…

• The National Collection of Welsh Photographs, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
• The National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich, London

…and a third national institution is in the throes of acquiring prints for its collection too (more news about this to follow in due course).

My portraits and audio recordings even feature in a cinema film, which has perhaps been one of the most unexpected developments. To see some of the photographs I made with the women of Scotland’s lifeboat community nestled among such poignant archive footage of the RNLI is so special, and to hear the music composed to accompany them regularly brings a tear to the eye.

Three short films have been made about the project and I was proud beyond words to be chosen as one of the RNLI’s 200 Voices to help mark the charity’s 200th anniversary.

Longstanding fans of the project might remember that the About page once carried a sentence describing my vision for the project, that I imagined it might one day be exhibited at a prestigious venue like The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

I removed the latter part of that sentence after a couple of years because it seemed rather cocky. But, goodness me, here we are in 2024 and the work is indeed on display at The NMM, a pinnacle of the project and everything achieved to this point.

And all of this has been created within a unique framework, one in which I’ve endeavoured to reshape the creative landscape by showing how projects can be made independently by reminding people in the social media age that, although we may be entertained free-of-charge, the work of creative folk like me doesn’t magically happen free-of-charge.

However, the world has changed immeasurably since those excitable twinklings of 2014.

I’ve rolled the dice so many times to keep The LSP going but I’ve sadly never recovered from the time in March 2020 when the lifeboat stations were closed for two years.

I had hoped that my exhibition at such a prestigious institution would be a silver bullet to help me continue but new income has yet to materialise — a telltale sign of the times.

More recently, I’ve had my third bout of Covid and find myself battling with chronic fatigue yet again, just when I was starting to feel more more ‘normal’ after my last bout in 2022.

On top of this, it’s been quite a time in other ways too.

My grandmother died peacefully on Good Friday, so we’ve been contending with everything that goes with the death of a loved one, which has only settled down over the last few weeks.

In short, my emotional, physical and financial resources are depleted.

Little has improved since I first wrote about this in July 2022. Attempting to document the 80 remaining stations will place us in further financial jeopardy, so I’ve come to the decision that it’s time to chart a new course for The LSP.

I shall no longer make new work on the project. Instead, I am shifting my attentions to making the much-anticipated coffee table book of the vast body of work I’ve made over the years, a process which is already getting underway.

I’ve given The Lifeboat Station Project my very best shot under the circumstances and I can’t thank so many of you enough for being so supportive and for helping me to get this far.

Even though I haven’t achieved the full extent of my original aim, I still consider the project to be a great success and feel very proud with what I’ve made and what we’ve made together.

Going forward, I’m very excited to collate the project into book-form and I do hope you’ll keep supporting me while I bring it to fruition.

You can do that in many ways, all of which are listed here.

Limited Edition Prints are available — just like the ones purchased by The National Library of Wales and Royal Museums Greenwich — as well as postcards and more from my online shop.

Ways to support the project:

BECOME A SUPPORTERJOIN THE LSP SOCIETYVISIT THE SHOP

Thank you very much for reading.

This news has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. It’s taken some time to get to this point as I’ve wanted to be sure it’s the right decision to make.

I do now feel sure and, as ever, I must follow my heart and do what I feel is right for me, my family and the project.