Shooting The High Seas

Ambrose Greenway shares his lifelong love of ships and his passion for maritime photography

- Ambrose Greenway

Inherited my love of the sea and ships from my father at an early age, and in 1953 he took me and the rest of the family to witness the great Coronation Naval Review at Spithead from the decks of the cross-channel steamer Maid of Orleans. A truly staggering array of ships of all sorts, the like of which we shall probably never see again.

My enthusiasm was nourished by spending my teenage years in the beautiful Cornish port of Fowey, where a constant stream of vessels coming in to load china clay fed a burgeoning interest in photography. I also witnessed a new ship doing her speed trials on the Polperro measured mile, and the new P&O Canberra passing by on her delivery cruise from Belfast.

My school was equipped with a rudimentary darkroom and I well remember the excitement of seeing an image appearing as if by magic on a sheet of paper, something that remained with me until decades later when I went digital.

Going to sea

After five years as a marine insurance broker at Lloyd’s of London, I decided that City life was not for me and took passage to Australia in a Norwegian cargo ship. The two-month voyage to Sydney fanned my interest in ships to a passion, and my 18-month stay in that fair city included a short spell working on the famous Harbour Bridge. The return voyage on the liner Oronsay via Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bombay (now Mumbai), Aden and Naples was equally exciting, including the transfer of a stowaway to a P&O cargo ship in mid-ocean.