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| Location | Cowes, UK |
| Prints issue | LIMITED EDITION 30 prints ONLY |
| Shooting date | juillet 1985 |
| Original picture | Negative |
| Original picture | Negative |
| Formats | Large format |
| Era | 1980-2000 |
| Colors | Black&White |
Jonathan Eastland (b1945) is an award winning photographer and writer. Educated on the Isle of Wight and at nautical college in Cardiff, Eastland was apprenticed as a navigating cadet officer to one of the UK's last tramp shipping companies, Watts Watts in 1963. The significant features of what was to become a short lived career were that, by the end of it, Eastland had made two circumnavigations, was hospitalised in Calcutta and was shanghai'd on an oil tanker for nearly a year.
He left the Merchant Navy in 1966 to begin a freelance career in photography and journalism, establishing the press agency Ajax News & Feature Service in 1971. It was one of the first agencies of its type specialising in maritime affairs.
For more than 50 years, Eastland has covered countless major international ocean racing competitions, commercial and warship events as well as documenting the lives of professional seamen and many other facets of life at sea on a wide range of vessels from ocean going tugs, deep sea and coastal freighters, salvage, oil industry supply and naval ships.
He was largely responsible for pioneering the use of long telephoto lenses in the 1960s and early 70s to capture close-up the drama of the sea and those who sail upon it. The photographer's work has been published internationally in newspapers, magazines, books and films; it was his photo of 1967 round-the-world sailor Alec Rose syndicated by the Associated Press, which effectively kick-started his career.
His photographs of nautical subjects have won several prizes. In 1987, he was announced winner of the Kodachrome Cup at the New York Yacht Club for the best picture of the 1986/7 America's Cup competition. In 1991, the photographer received 1st prize for a b+w image of the yacht Sidewinder in the Shell Oil sponsored The Sea exhibition. His book HMS VIctory - First Rate 1765, co-authored with Iain Ballantyne, was nominated for the Mountbatten Award in 2012.
This body of work numbers more than 100,000 images.
His interest in photography began at an early age; both his parents were prolific enthusiasts. The gift of a Kodak Box Brownie camera from his paternal grandmother at the age of ten cemented the foundation of what was to become an obsession with photography.
While best known for his maritime work, Jonathan Eastland's photographic interests include street and ethnographic subjects. In the early 1990s, the photographer spent two years documenting English Boot Sales resulting in the Fields of Dreams exhibition at the Oxford Photographer's Workshop. His latest work published in 2016, The Somme - exploring a war-torn landscape, is the result of a 15 year project photographing the WW1 battlefield. He writes for the British Journal of Photography, is editor-at-large for Warships International Fleet Review journal, publishes books and manages the Ajax News Photo picture library.
BOOKS
Camera At Sea; pub. Ajax Publishing Co Ltd., 1975.
Kamera Til Sjoss, Raben & Sjogren, Stockholm, 1977.
Marine & Seascape Photography; B.T.Batsford, London, 1983.
Cityscape Photography; B.T.Batsford, London, 1985.
Essential Darkroom Techniques; Blandford Press, Cassell PLC, 1987 - 2000 (3 editions.).
Great Yachts & Their Designers; Rizzoli, New York. Adlard Coles Ltd., London, 1987.
Romance of Tall Ships; Quarto Publishing, London, 1990. (7 editions.).
Camera At Sea; Ashford Buchan & Enright, Southampton, 1990.
Leica M Compendium; Hove Collectors Books, 1994. (German Ed, Laterna Magica, 1995.)
Leica R Compendium, Hove Collectors Books, 1995. (German Ed, Laterna Magica, 1996.)
Leica R8; Hove Collectors Books, 1997. (German Ed, Laterna Magica, 1997.)
Leica M6TTL Handbook; Ajax Editions, 2000.
Leica M7 Handbook; Ajax Editions, 2003.
Leica MP-MP Questions & Answers; Ajax Editions, 2004.
H.M.S.Victory; Pen & Sword, 2005.
HMS Victory - First Rate 1765; Seaforth Publishing, UK, 2011. United States Naval Institute Press, 2011.
The Somme - exploring a war-torn landscape; Ajax Editions, UK 2016.
The waters of the Solent have been my 'backyard' for years. I grew up looking at them from a bedroom window in our home at East Cowes and later, as a schoolboy, from my classroom in West Cowes. I learned to sail on it at a young age and eventually lived on a river that fed into it for nearly four decades and during which time, I spent countless hours photographing anything that cared to float on it.
It's waters can be deceptive. There are double-tides. On occasion, it's surface is as smooth and gentle as a baby's bottom and sometimes, as dark, brooding and uninviting as the deepest place you have ever been.
On this occasion while covering the Admiral's Cup in 1985, my friend and I had set out from Hamble in a 6m motor cruiser with a boat-load of passengers including women and children who had all wanted to see the start of the Fastnet race.
As we left the river and hit the Solent, it quickly became apparent the 5 mile crossing to Cowes would be difficult in such a small boat, overloaded as it was. The wind had got up to near gale force and the tide was already running - another typical Solent wind-over tide scenario.
We dropped the passengers in Cowes, pulled up the covers and headed out past the Royal Yacht Squadron toward Egypt Point where we could expect both the roughest water and yachts coming close inshore to get the best of the tidal push.
By the time of the race start for the Cup yachts, pandemonium raged on the start-line as they fought it out on a tough beat westward. My launch skipper struggled through seas as big as any I have seen in the Solent. At one point we hit a wave with such force it embedded the metal pentaprism of my camera into my nose, sending great spouts of blood across the cockpit like spray from a hose! Trying to re-load film under those conditions were almost impossible, blood and salt water dripping into everything.
Again, this was an occasion for long-focus lenses. The Nikon on which the Novoflex 400mm was fitted stopped working half way through the assignment. I was left with a motorised Olympus and 300mm lens, which is what this picture of Sidewinder was made with. It won the Shell Oil Exhibition 'Best Picture of the Sea' that year.
