Ballet of the elements: Clive Booth's photographs of lifeboats in action

Capturing the hearts of the crew

Since then, The Ileachs Project has continued and Clive has lost count of the number of shoots he's done on Islay. They have ranged from high-octane exercises out on the water with the RNLI crew to quieter formal portraits of them. "To get to know the crew and to photograph them in the sea, in storms and then at home, has been incredible," he says. "Spending time with them and their families, you realise what's at stake. Islay's an island of 3,500 inhabitants. There's a deep sense of community."

"On one occasion, I shot portraits of the entire crew in their kit in window light in the station using the Canon EOS 5DS and Canon EOS 5DS R on a tripod. More recently, I was able to do that handheld with the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV because of its low-light capabilities. With diffuse light and a reflector, you can create these really atmospheric, emotive portraits. I then de-saturate them in post-production – because the bright yellow of their kit somehow distracts from the person – and increase the contrast. It's gritty, most of my work in Islay; that's how I see the place."

Clive replicated this setup in relevant spots in the crew's homes or workplaces, to create diptychs to illustrate the crew in crew kit and then lit in the same style at work. "It was quite tricky," he says. "I photographed Raymond Fletcher, who is a farmer but also the lifeboat's second coxswain, in a barn. However, the light source came from the opposite direction, so I got him to switch his wedding ring to the other hand and then I flipped the image. This portrait series seemed to resonate with people. In just two pictures, you tell a story, as they say in the RNLI, of ordinary people doing extraordinary things."

Clive says he was attracted to Canon kit early in his career, initially for the lenses. But he soon fell in love with the cameras, too. "For most of my boat stuff I use Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM and Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lenses. I love using primes for portraiture. My go-to lenses are a Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM and a Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L II USM."

But when photographing Robbie, the young son of RNLI crew member and professional gamekeeper Scott Brown, Clive had something of a revelation about zooms.

"When I was taking pictures of his dad, Robbie would appear on a quad bike trying to get our attention," he remembers. "One time he appeared with a puppy and an ice lolly. It broke your heart! I pulled up the camera, with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens, and put the focus on the puppy. Normally, with a prime, you'd see beautiful bokeh and super-sharp focus on the puppy. This was first time I'd used a zoom in that way and the result looked like a prime. I was an immediate convert."

High-octane shoots on the water

Shooting the lifeboats themselves brought plenty of other considerations. It's very much a team effort, and, in advance of a shoot, Clive sits down with the operations manager, himself a keen photographer, and the Coxwain. They have a second boat to shoot from and a safety officer in attendance.

The weather in Islay can rapidly change from sun to snow to cloud, which gives great diversity to the pictures. But on one trip just before Christmas 2017, he was working in 50mph winds. "Safety is first and foremost," Clive says, "but once you've worked that out, this ballet starts to happen between your position in relation to the boat, the tide and the wind direction. It's challenging but it's very rewarding.

"One of the more ambitious shoots we did was in June 2015. I was fortunate enough to work with the British Royal Navy on one of its last-ever exercises with the legendary search and rescue Sea King helicopter from HMS Gannet and RNLI Islay lifeboat team before the service was privatised. For safety reasons I was only allowed to use one camera body and one lens so I chose a Canon EOS 5DS R and a Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L USM lens, which was quite new at the time."

Dressed in an RNLI dry suit, Clive was winched into the helicopter where he'd been given special permission to shoot with his legs dangling from the open door. "I wanted to get this particular shot of the lifeboat in the shadow of the helicopter," he recalls. "I never thought we'd do it, but we did."

Other pictures have been less calculated but no less breathtaking. On one occasion Clive forgot to put his lens on servo mode. "A wave rose and fell and there were two droplets of water at the point where the camera was focusing," he says.

"The focus was so quick it locked on to these two drops and what you see is the wave in focus, the boat out of focus, and the wake of the boat 50 feet either side. You see the spray, the drama and the mountains in the background. It's a happy accident but it's interesting because it gives the viewer a survivor's point of view."

For Clive, "lenses are connected with memories because they're linked with certain pictures." He has had many happy experiences and encounters on Islay that helped him form strong connections with the island. Last year, Coxswain David MacLellan was awarded the RNLI Bronze Medal for Gallantry – one of the charity’s highest accolades – for his display of great skill and seamanship in an extremely arduous service. His four crew members were also recognised for their part in the rescue, an operation which lasted 18 hours.

Clive was invited up to the ceremony to give a presentation about his work to the volunteers and crew, along with islanders and Vice Admiral Paul Boissier CB MA MSc, Chief Executive of the RNLI. "I was incredibly proud to be involved," he says. "My passion for working in Scotland will never go away."