Brilliant photographs of holidaymakers on cruise ships in the 1990s

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.