As offshore wind reshapes the global energy landscape, the people building it remain largely unseen. Drawing on first-hand experience offshore and a six-decade visual archive of the North Sea energy sector, Ashley Linford of CHPV Offshore Film and Photography explores why authentic storytelling matters, not only to document the energy transition but to inspire the next generation who will carry it forward.
What’s happening in offshore energy right now is genuinely revolutionary. And most of it is invisible or unrelatable to the people it will affect most.
I’ve been on both sides of it: installing turbines as a young man and now telling its stories through film and photography. The gap between what this industry is achieving and what the world understands about it is one of the most significant opportunities I can see at the moment.
I spent the better part of a decade as part of crews building it. As one of the first four trainees of Seajacks, now Cadeler, I worked my way up aboard the Kraken, installing offshore wind turbines around the UK in the North Sea. What I noticed is that there’s a way these sites operate. There’s a culture and a rhythm, and I realise now that much of that story is still waiting to be told.
That’s what eventually pulled me away and towards the camera. And it’s what now drives me as the person taking CHPV Offshore Film and Photography into the next chapter of its more than 60 years of history.