In January, the photographer Max Lancaster found himself touring a decommissioned submarine, the SAS Assegaai, in Simon\u2019s Town, South Africa. Guided by a former crew member who had served on the watercraft in the 1980s, Max was struck by how the guide described life on the boat as \u201cboth isolating and full of camaraderie\u201d, and when he left the boat he told his girlfriend that life at sea appealed to him. \u201cShe thought I was mad,\u201d Max says.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, Max was rewatching Wes Anderson\u2019s quirky 2004 flick The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and while he was very aware that it was \u201cstylised and romantic\u201d he couldn\u2019t help that it further fuelled his newfound interest with life at sea, and \u201cthe idea of living and working on the water with a mix of personalities really resonated\u201d, he says. He began reaching out to scientific vessels and shipping companies about possible trips to facilitate a photographic project, but to no avail. Until, by chance, he met a man called Nick at a pub in London, whose family chartered large boats. \u201cI followed up with an email, and four months later I was on the Panda 006, a 270m container ship,\u201d Max says, and the series Life Suspended Between Ports was born.<\/p>\n
Outside their strangely aesthetic appearance of stacked colourful metal boxes and the fact they carry large amounts of goods across the sea, not much is actually known about the inner workings of container ships, and when stepping on board, one of the first things that interested Max was a key point of contrast \u2013 \u201cthe sheer scale of the ship versus the small crew of 25\u201d, he says. \u201cIt felt like the perfect setting to explore themes of isolation, routine, and human connection.\u201d Faced with such vastness and 25 new people to engage with, Max set himself a strict routine, mirroring that of the workers. Waking up at the same time each morning and then having curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner with the crew at the same time everyday: \u201cThankfully, I love Indian food \u2013 it was made really well on board,\u201d says Max.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In January, the photographer Max Lancaster found himself touring a decommissioned submarine, the SAS Assegaai, in Simon\u2019s Town,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-136501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}