Last weekend I had the incredible opportunity to go to Ladner, British Columbia, to document the crew of the Delta Lifeboat. It was an amazing experience and a step out of my comfort zone. I made a video about the experience which you can watch below!

As someone who is quite shy and introverted, meeting new groups can be quite overwhelming for me. However the more I do this: putting myself in unfamiliar situations with my camera, the more my anxieties fall away. My camera legitimises my presence there and makes me feel more comfortable engaging with people and just focusing on telling the story.

The boat itself was built in 1944, in Pearl Harbour, so it has a really interesting history, and while it has undergone some changes through the years, a lot of the original details still survive. I did try make quite a few pictures to showcase these details and also focused on how the crew has made this space their own through personal touches.

Spending time with the crew, and just observing them in their tasks was an honour. The crew are made up entirely of volunteers. To find a group of people this passionate and dedicated is a goldmine for a photographer and I couldn’t have been happier to have had this opportunity.