I was commissioned by the Royal Navy to document the VIP launch party for HMS Queen Elizabeth at Portsmouth Naval Base, shortly after the ship’s first arrival at her home port.

Inside HMS Queen Elizabeth

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy, and its scale is difficult to grasp until you are standing inside it. The hangar deck alone is enormous. On this occasion it had been transformed for the evening, with tiered blue seating set across its width and the Royal Marines Band performing in full ceremonial dress to a seated audience. A space designed for aircraft, repurposed for one night as a formal performance venue.

After the band, guests moved into a drinks reception, also held on the hangar deck. Beneath White Ensigns and sponsor displays, the evening then moved into a formal black tie dinner, with candlelit tables laid out across the space, followed by speeches, a charity auction and awards. The scale of the ship gave the whole event an unusual sense of occasion.

Before the formal programme began, guests were taken on private tours of the ship. Some areas remained off limits to photography, including operational spaces and control rooms where cameras were not permitted. Access was carefully managed by Royal Marine personnel, and the evening moved within those constraints.

Ceremonial photography and formal groups

The formal group photograph required its own level of planning. Tiered seating had been arranged on deck in naval formation, with rows of officers and guests in ceremonial dress set against the scale of the ship itself. It was one of the most formally structured scenes I have photographed, and one of the most unusual.

My brief was to document the evening as it unfolded: the atmosphere aboard ship, the Royal Marines Band in performance, guests moving through the event, and the formal moments that gave the night its character. Every part of HMS Queen Elizabeth had its own light, restrictions and character, which shaped how the event could be photographed.

Being commissioned by the Royal Navy for an event like this was rare, and photographing it from inside HMS Queen Elizabeth made it all the more remarkable.

Royal Navy event photography: HMS Queen Elizabeth

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