Deindustrialisation is a long-held fascination of mine. Photography gave me a means to explore the living remnants of the increasingly post-industrial landscape around us. In 2013, I became especially intrigued by our last remaining heavy industry – oil and gas – how it could possess an ability to be instrumental in shaping our society and influencing governments, and yet for the majority of people, its source remained firmly rooted in our imaginations, existing far beyond our physical horizons, hundreds of miles out at sea.
For the last 10 years, I navigated my way around the North Sea. Hopping on and off Platform Supply Vessels {PSVs} when opportunities presented themselves, with my camera I was able to capture the towering installations that incongruously rise up from the sea depths and document the shifts in the Scottish sector’s offshore oil and gas industry as it gradually moves into the burgeoning end of life stage for its infrastructure – decommissioning and on-shore dismantling.
A decade in the making, it now gives me great pleasure to announce that my new photobook, We Drift Like Worried Fire is now available to Pre-Order via Another Places Press. I would like to thank all the many people for their ongoing support over the years. I can’t wait to share this with you all – you can get a taste of the book and some commentary on one of my favourite pictures below.
This has been one of my favourite images from my entire project for some time now…
During Covid-19 lockdown 1.0, any trips I had planned offshore were immediately shelved. In fact, the support which I had received from certain operators never returned post-lockdown. Fortunately, I was able to divert my attention to the decommissioning and onshore dismantling processes, which had been gathering pace for several years up to that point. Yards in Scotland, northern England, Denmark and Norway were all clamouring for these contracts. There were 2 specific sites in the UK that seemed to be securing these works – Able Yard in Teesside and Dales Voe on the Shetland Islands. It is at the latter of these two sites where this image of the collapsed Ninian Northern Platform was taken.
Gaining access to these sites proved challenging. In fact, having spent years delicately negotiating with oil & gas companies, I thought dealing with demolition companies would be a skoosh. I was so wrong. In short, I had to travel to Norway to finally gain access to a demolition yard where they were breaking down offshore infrastructure – go figure?
Despite this, my resolve remained firm. Despite having no direct contacts at the yard and relying mainly on weekly energy news feeds, I made approximately 9 trips over the course of 2 years to cover the gradual dismantling of both the Ninian Northern Platform topside and sub-sea jacket, sneaking either onto site when no-one was there {on occasion hiding from workers} or patrolling the perimeter fence, where I’d regularly get questioned if I stepped onto the site to gain a better viewpoint.
I really enjoyed those trips.
I’d hop on the ferry in Aberdeen at 7pm, arrive in Lerwick 7am the following morning, walk the 3 miles to Dales Voe, and spend the day shooting, sometimes even walking back to get the ferry at 7pm that same evening. I loved that sense of not knowing what condition the platform would be in as I turned that final corner, and last 1/2 mile stretch towards the yard…. that surreal, altered landscape. It’s not uncommon to find these yards neighbouring wildlife reserves or pastoral lands. This scene immediately reminded me of an image by one of my favourite photographer’s, Richard Misrach, from his book, ‘Petrochemical America’. In a way, it’s my personal homage to him and the influence his work, especially his ‘Desert Cantos’ series has had on my career.
