Did you take these photos yourself Michael or were they part of an archive compiled by the ship's photographer?
Linda, sadly, as far as i know, none of the ships photographers had the foresight to compile an archive of the various areas of the ship. We were after all a commercial enterprise, there to offer a service to passengers and make money. We did have stock pictures of all the main restaurants and public rooms as these were quite popular sellers on board. Generally the only time we went behind the scenes was at the request of one of the ships officers to record an event or problem.
I suppose in our youthful naïveté we imagined that QE2 would always be there. She seemed so fresh and new and modern and the Mary and Elizabeth seemed so old by comparison, surely they were where the history should have been recorded. We didn't think to recognise our place in the history of QE2, much less sieze the opportunity to capture it. Little did we imagine what lay in store for her thirty years ahead. How could we guess that QE2 would be the last truly great ocean liner of our generation, perhaps the last ever.
Thank goodness for people like flagship who did have the good sense to take so many pictures.
I wonder if anyone on the forum knows the name of the company who took over the on board photography concession from Ocean Pictures. I know there were, in storage, negatives from all the on board photography going right back to Queen Mary. It would be very interesting to get access to those archives if they still exist.
