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| Location | Cowes, UK |
| Prints issue | LIMITED EDITION 30 prints ONLY |
| Shooting date | July 1979 |
| Original picture | Negative |
| Original picture | Negative |
| Era | 1960-1980 |
| Colors | Black&White |
| Collection | Vintage |
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.
Compared to previous bi-annual Admiral's Cup events, the 1979 championship deployed more yachts and teams than ever. 19 three boat teams came to the Royal Yacht Squadron line for the second inshore race in blustery conditions.
In fact, the night before the race was due to begin, I had carefully listened to the shipping forecast and discussed with my launch skipper what we should do the next morning.
'Launch' is a bit of understatement. The photo-platform we intended to use was an ex WWII 70ft (21m) German Torpedo Recovery boat, now fitted with a new engine and only capable of about 14 knots instead of her designed 25knot+ speed. We agreed we would take a small (5m) aluminium outboard powered dory on the after-deck, so that if conditions allowed we would be able to use that as the photo-platform instead of the 'big' boat. 'Get in quick - get out quick' was always my motto and more especially on this occasion because the 'big' boat had been warned 'off' by the RORC at the start of the 1st Race the day before.
We left the Hamble river early voyaging to Cowes in a choppy sea. The wind was getting up. Things did not look good. A decision was made to anchor off Cowes and get the small dory into the water. This was an open boat so we arranged a tarpaulin over the front part under which myself and my colleague from the Associated Press would 'hide' while my skipper navigated to a position close to the Royal Yacht Squadron a few minutes before the start.
We were inside the leeward end of the line, above the rocks which rapidly show as the tide ebbs here.
It was very windy - force 6-7, gusting 8. My Ap colleague and I were hoping to get a picture which showed the maelstrom on the start-line and for this I needed a 'big' lens - my favourite long-tom being the Novoflex rapid focus 400mm - fitted to a Nikon F with motor drive.
The sea was very choppy in this location, wind over tide making it difficult for my boat skipper to hold position for more than a few seconds at a time - and we had to be in just the RIGHT position; the start line being square-on, gave a very narrow angle of view for such a long lens.
The first attempt to start the yachts was a failure. General re-call in total confusion.
As the second attempt got under way, we counted down the minutes until the final 60 seconds. Then my skipper put us exactly where I wanted to be - just long enough to fire-off about six frames. One of these turned out to be pretty much what I had seen in my head before the start.
After that, we went back to the big boat for tea, before setting out to catch the yachts on the spinnaker run down the Solent.
Overall, it was a cracking day. My picture of the start more or less went 'viral' at the time, if you can imagine anything almost 40 years ago going viral! Anyway, it was published in a lot of places world-wide and often accompanied the story about the Fastnet Race tragedy of the same year.
Lots of press-prints were rushed out at the time. How the negative survived in such good shape I will never know. As was often the case with the old ways of working, speed was of the essence. The negatives soon got damaged.
