In the summer of 2026, I was commissioned by British Rowing to spend an afternoon at GORSE Boat Club in Leeds, documenting a visit from British Rowing CEO and former Team GB Olympic rower Tom Solesbury as he learned more about the club’s pioneering approach to getting young people involved in rowing.
It was a brilliant editorial assignment, combining documentary photography, sport and environmental portraits with a genuinely interesting story about widening access to a sport that many young people might otherwise never experience.
Breaking Down Barriers to Rowing
GORSE Boat Club is part of The GORSE Academies Trust, a group of schools across Leeds which has been introducing its students to rowing since 2016.
What makes the programme particularly interesting is the pathway it creates. Rowing is introduced through the school curriculum before students are given opportunities to continue at after school sessions, with those showing a particular interest or aptitude able to progress into the club’s performance programme.
Many of the schools within the Trust serve communities where opportunities to take part in a sport such as rowing have traditionally been limited, so the programme is about far more than simply producing successful crews.
That said, there has been plenty of competitive success too. Shortly before my visit, GORSE Boat Club had won gold in the J14 Coxed Quads at the National Schools’ Regatta, a significant achievement for a relatively young club competing on the national stage.
Documenting The British Rowing Visit
Former Team GB Olympic athlete and British Rowing CEO Tom Solesbury visited GORSE to see the programme for himself, meeting members of the Trust and coaching team before heading down to the boathouse to spend time with some of the young rowers.
My brief was to document the visit naturally and create a varied collection of editorial images that British Rowing could use to tell the wider story. As with most editorial assignments, that meant working around events as they unfolded rather than trying to control them too heavily.
I photographed conversations between Tom, the coaches and young athletes, details around the boathouse and preparations on the riverbank, alongside plenty of rowing action once everyone took to the water.
Telling The Story Around The Action
Although rowing was obviously an important part of the shoot, I was conscious that the story was about much more than photographs of boats on the water.
The interaction between the young rowers, coaches and Tom was just as important. I wanted the finished collection to show the personalities involved, the sense of community within the club and the enthusiasm surrounding the programme.
That meant constantly moving between wider documentary photographs that established the environment, tighter moments between people, portraits and details, before switching to longer lenses to capture the rowing itself out on the river.
For editorial work like this, I also deliberately shoot a mixture of landscape and portrait compositions, along with images containing space for headlines or copy. It gives the client a much more flexible library to work with across articles, social media, marketing and other communications.
Editorial Photography With A Human Story
Assignments like this are exactly why I enjoy editorial photography.
On the surface, it was an afternoon photographing a visit from the CEO of British Rowing. Behind that was a much richer story about young people discovering a new sport, coaches creating opportunities within their community and a Leeds rowing programme beginning to make its mark nationally.
My job was to bring those different elements together into a collection of photographs that showed not only what happened during the afternoon, but why the programme matters.
You can read more about GORSE Boat Club and its success in the feature on the British Rowing website.
Looking For An Editorial Photographer?
If you’re looking for an editorial photographer in Leeds, Yorkshire or further afield to document a story, organisation or project, I’d love to hear about it. I work with publications, charities, businesses and organisations to create natural, people focused photography that helps communicate the story behind what they do.
