A Fife RNLI volunteer crew member has used his love of photography and his talents for spotting a good picture opportunity to raise much needed funds for his local lifeboat station.
Donnie Maclean, who began volunteering at the local RNLI station in early 2020, is a member of the shorecrew and trainee tractor driver at Kinghorn life boat station.
In his time in between emergency rescue call outs, Donnie has put his amateur photographic skills to good use capturing a series of stunning landscape images of Kinghorn Beach area during downtime at the station.
His talent behind the lens has helped raise around £500 of funds for the station after a calendar of 12 of his most accomplished shots sold out in days.
The dozen images featured include local beachscapes, the Firth of Forth as well as life on Kinghorn Lifeboat.
Donnie said the calendar had come about after posting some of his favourite photos on social media.
“The feedback I was getting was very positive, so I thought that it would be a good opportunity to pull the best ones together into a calendar,” Donnie explained.
Donnie decided to become an RNLI volunteer after being dramatically rescued himself a few years ago following an emergency.
“I’m hugely passionate about fundraising for the RNLI, as I was actually rescued by the RNLI Lifeboat on Loch Ness during a kayaking endurance feat that I was attempting in 2016.
“One of my fellow athletes was knocked into the water when the wind and swell got up at a pinch point about half way down the loch,” said Donnie,
“I went to help him and ended up getting knocked into the water too.
“The waves were too high for us to be able to get back into the kayaks, and we were right in the middle, so we were really struggling.
“He was really suffering with the cold water, so we radioed for the lifeboat, and they were amazing.”
Donnie said he’s loving his time at Kinghorn station which has operated from the small Fife coastal village since 1965.
One of two RNLI stations along the Fife coast, along with Anstruther, volunteers at Kinghorn were kept busy with over 100 emergency ‘shouts’ during 2020.
Due to the success of the calendar, which has taken Donnie and his colleagues by surprise, plans are already afoot to produce a follow up in 2022,as long as Donnie can keep capturing stunning imagery of the Fife coastline.
The Kinghorn RNLI station has had a very busy 2020, responding to nearly 100 incidents.
