Offshore wind is transforming the energy landscape, but much of the work taking place beyond the horizon remains unseen by the people it will ultimately affect. For Ashley Linford of CHPV Offshore Film and Photography, authentic visual storytelling can help close that gap while creating a record of how the energy transition was built.
Having spent almost a decade working offshore, including installing wind turbines in the North Sea, Linford has experienced the industry from both sides of the camera. That experience has highlighted stories that rarely reach a wider audience: the culture of offshore sites, the precision involved in complex operations and the people behind the infrastructure.
Documenting a changing industry
CHPV has documented North Sea energy since the early gas platforms of the 1960s. Its archive now contains approximately 2.5 million images and thousands of hours of footage covering six decades of development.
The record includes:
For Linford, documenting projects today is about more than recording individual assets. The images and footage being produced now could become an important historical resource for researchers, families and future generations trying to understand how Britain’s energy system changed.
‘Every day, on every project, we are creating a little bit of history,’ he writes.
The stories behind the infrastructure
Across UK waters, offshore wind development involves installation vessels, extensive supply chains and thousands of workers. Yet the everyday reality of delivering these projects, from early morning mobilisations and precision lifts to the experience of offshore crews, is rarely communicated through human stories.
Linford argues that some of the most important stories are found among the workforce:
This matters because some of that experience could soon disappear from the industry. As workers with decades of North Sea experience retire, their personal accounts risk being lost with them.
Inspiring the workforce still to come
The North Sea has more than 60 years of offshore experience, spanning oil and gas and now offshore wind. That history has created an engineering culture and body of knowledge with relevance far beyond the UK.
However, documenting the past is only part of the argument. Visual storytelling could also help attract the next generation of workers.
For many young people, offshore energy remains something distant and unfamiliar. Linford points to conversations with young people in coastal communities who were unaware that offshore energy could provide a career path for them.
His point is simple: ‘You can’t aspire to something you’ve never seen.’
Showing the people behind offshore wind, rather than concentrating solely on turbines, vessels and engineering processes, can make those careers more relatable.
Authenticity in an age of AI
Linford believes the next stage of energy communication will be defined less by camera technology and more by understanding audiences and people. Documentary films, short-form storytelling and immersive formats could give the public and future workers a clearer view of life offshore.
These approaches are not intended to replace technical communication, but to sit alongside it.
As AI-generated content becomes increasingly accessible, Linford expects genuinely human stories to become more valuable. Technical statements can explain what an industry is achieving, but personal experience can explain why it matters.
As he puts it: ‘Statements inform, but stories connect.’
Offshore wind is creating infrastructure that could shape energy systems for decades. Recording the engineers, technicians and offshore crews responsible for building it ensures the human story becomes part of that history too.
Explore the full feature on authentic storytelling, offshore energy history and inspiring the industry’s future workforce in PES Wind: https://pes.eu.com/exclusive-articles/the-stories-that-built-an-industry-and-the-ones-still-waiting-to-be-told