THEY look like images from bygone days, but these pictures have been taken in the last three years, using a Victorian process to achieve an old-fashioned effect.

Photographer Jack Lowe is on a mission to capture all of the country’s 238 RNLI lifeboat stations using wet plate collodion, a Victorian process that creates stunning photographic images on glass.

These images can now be seen in Aberystwyth in an exhibition at the National Library of Wales and, on Saturday, the library will host Jack and the RNLI for a Lifeboat Fun Day to celebrate The Lifeboat Station Project exhibition and to mark the Year of the Sea.

The exhibition, which opened on 31 March, contains images taken by Jack, who has been on the road for three years and, with 100 stations under his belt, is nearly half way through his challenge.

In 2017, the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth purchased a selection of Jack’s prints for the National Collection of Welsh Photographs.

Now they’re hosting the very first exhibition of those images: powerful portraits of Welsh lifeboat stations and their brave volunteer crews.

The free exhibition runs until March 2019 and forms part of Visit Wales’ Year of the Sea, a year-long celebration of the Welsh coastline.

There will be a Lifeboat Fun Day at the library on 28 April to celebrate the exhibition and to mark the Year of the Sea.

Jack said he was looking forward to the event and pleased to have his work shown at the library.

“This is the first time my photographs have been recognised at a national level in this way,” he said. “I dreamed it might happen one day but I never expected this kind of acknowledgement while in the midst of making the work.

“I am over the moon for the RNLI volunteers too. I can’t make these photographs without them, so it’s wonderful to see our brave lifeboat men and women placed on such a high pedestal.”

See this week’s south papers for the full feature, available in shops and as a digital edition now