Isla Forbes

I photograph the people who work on the North Sea, and the weather they work in.

Documentary and editorial photographer based in Peterhead. Shooting on film and digital since 2011. Available for commissions from Montrose to Wick.

See the work Commission me

A deckhand in orange oilskins hauling chains beside a full net — Davie hauling the bag, 60 miles east of Fraserburgh. 4am, February.

2022 to 2025

The Last Boats Out

Peterhead and Fraserburgh still land more fish than anywhere in Britain, with a third of the boats they had when my grandad crewed. I spent three winters on the ones that are left.

A crewman in yellow waterproofs standing among crates on deck — Sorting the catch on the Ocean Venture. Nobody talks for the first hour.

A green and yellow trawler heading out under a blue sky — Steaming out past the breakwater. The skipper's third boat, his first was his father's.

A small fishing boat followed by gulls across open water — Gulls know the boats better than we do. They follow this one, not the others.

2022 to 2025

The Last Boats Out

Peterhead and Fraserburgh still land more fish than anywhere in Britain, with a third of the boats they had when my grandad crewed. I spent three winters on the ones that are left.

2024

Mending

Nets tear every trip. In a shed behind Buckie harbour, three people mend them by hand, the way it was done a hundred years ago.

Weathered hands pulling fine net twine taut, in black and white — Alec, 81. Mending since he was eleven.

Hands tying a knot in green netting — A sheet bend, about four thousand times a day.

Green net spread across a wooden floor while hands work through it — The loft floor, laid out like a map.

Ongoing

Weather

The North Sea decides when anyone works. I go out when the forecast tells everyone else to stay in.

A wave towering over a harbour lighthouse — Storm Babet over the north breakwater.

Black and white waves exploding against a pier wall and lighthouse — Twenty minutes before the harbour master closed the pier.

A stone pier on a calm morning over a rocky shore — The morning after. Flat calm, like nothing happened.

A wave breaking over a pier beside a red lighthouse — The red light, the only colour for miles.

Small boats in a stone harbour under a big cloudy sky — Gardenstown harbour, everyone in for the day.

About

I grew up in Boddam, two miles south of Peterhead. My grandad crewed on the Silver Harvest for thirty years and never once let me on board. I started photographing the harbour at fourteen with his old Olympus.

After a degree at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen and six years on a newspaper picture desk, I came home to make long projects about the coast. I still print my own work in a darkroom in the garage. The red light on this site is that one.

“Isla gets let onto boats nobody else is allowed near, because the crews trust her. You can see it in every frame.”

Morven Gray

Picture editor, Harbour Light magazine

“She sat with my dad in the mending loft for three weeks before she took a single picture. That photo of his hands is on our kitchen wall now.”

Fiona Cowie

Alec's daughter

Work with me

Editorial commissions

Day rate £650, plus travel. Mostly for magazines and newspapers covering farming, fishing and the coast.

Organisations

Annual reports and campaigns for harbour trusts, fishermen's missions and lifeboat stations. Quoted per project.

Prints

Fibre-based prints from the three series, editions of 15. A4 £180, A3 £320, framed in Scottish oak £95 extra.

Tell me what you're working on.

I reply within two days, unless I'm at sea. Then it's whenever we're back in.

isla@islaforbes.photo 07700 951 402

Studio and darkroom: 14 Merchant Street, Peterhead AB42 1DU. By appointment.