Brilliant photographs of holidaymakers on cruise ships in the 1990s

Date
12 August 2015

If ever you’ve raised an overloaded forkful of spaghetti to your mouth to be caught on camera unawares, or emerged sweaty and bewildered from a sauna to find your mum with her iPhone in your face, or been snapped from your least attractive angle while fearing for your life atop a camel, Love Boat Rejects goes out to you.

Ian Hughes is a photographer whose first job on leaving art college in Merseyside in 1989 was as a photographer on American and Italian cruiseships – a funny and strange occupation which placed him front and centre on the summer holidays of thousands of unsuspecting, life-loving tourists. He shot every moment of their vacations, from their arrival onto the boat, ticket still in hand, to posing proudly on beaches or over tea and biscuits in the restaurant on-board, and unsurprisingly, his snapshots include some treasures that beat any staged family portrait. His collection is a glorious and unpredictable archive, and we cannot get enough of it. Especially that large man and his poor, poor camel.

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above
Left

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Right

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Above

Ian Hughes: Love Boat Rejects

Share Article

About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.