Photographing fishermen

Philip Dunn has photographed newspaper and magazine features about people all over the world. Here he talks you through some of the techniques for photographing people who do tough jobs. How to make your initial approach and how to set about gathering your photographs

LANDING THE CATCH

The rewards and challenges of photographing people going about their work is, for me, one of the great joys of photography. I’m lucky to have been commissioned to photograph people doing all sorts of tough jobs, but few could have a more dangerous occupation than our fishermen.

One thing I have noticed whenever I have photographed people who regularly put their lives at risk to make a living – be they steeple-jacks, miners or firemen – is that with the correct approach from a photographer they are invariably the most helpful and considerate of subjects.

In my last blog about Photographing Craftsmen I mentioned how important it is to approach people in a proper manner if you want to take pictures – and make no mistake here, photographing people at work is definitely not just the preserve of the professional photographer.

In some ways, the amateur photographer has the advantage over the professional because he or she is less ‘official’. For instance, a subject may be very shy about publicity, but nevertheless take great pride in his or her job – they will be happy to allow photography for personal use, but not for a newspaper or magazine. So, while the amateur photographer may feel reluctant to admit that he is only taking pictures for personal use or camera club competition, this can actually prove to be an advantage.

SUSPICION
Fishermen, in particular, are fiercely independent people and it is important that you go some way to seeing things from their point of view. When they arrive at the fish quay to unload their catch, they are well-used to tourists taking snapshots. Most fishermen put a brave face on this and ignore the intruders. When they see someone photographing them using a professional-looking DSLR, they get more suspicious.

Why? Well just think about it – fishermen are on the receiving end of every bureaucratic edict, regulation, EU rule and sophisticated surveillance technique know to man – yet none of these rules bring them any advantages, only restrictions and more regulation from EU snoopers. So when they see a professional-looking photographer on the quayside, their natural instinct is one of suspicion… is that photographer yet another snooper?

My approach before taking a single picture at Tarbert was to go along to the harbour office and speak to the dockside manager. I told him who I was and that I would like to take photographs when the boats returned in the evening to unload their catch. Would this be all right? When he agreed, I asked him if he would spread the word that I would be on the quayside that evening.

Later, as I waited for the first boat to arrive, I chatted to workers on the dockside. It all helped smooth things along. When each boat came alongside everyone went into action. Boxes of fish and prawns were hoisted ashore, fresh ice was packed around some and the boxes whisked away in fork-lift trucks. The whole place buzzed with activity.

In these situations it is vital to be aware of what is going on around you. Don’t get in the way and don’t cause an accident. Look where you are putting your feet. Keep your eyes open to everything that is going on and move in close when you see something worthwhile. I like to work with a wide angle lens for two good reasons; it can give the viewer of your pictures a sense of being in the centre of the action, and it avoids the possibility of someone getting between you and your subject at the wrong moment.

As each boat arrived, I called down to the skipper and crew from the quayside to tell them what I was up to – this again allayed any suspicion. It also resulted in an invitation from one skipper to come aboard and take pictures – I was down the quayside ladder like a shot.

PICTURE CAPTIONS

Photographs 1-3

The first boat to come alongside unloaded a catch of razor shellfish. The difficulty here (photograph 2) is that the boat was very low beneath the quay and it was almost impossible to get the boat and the unloaded boxes in the same picture. When I stepped back to include the boxes, the boat was out of sight. Photograph 1 told the story most effectively, but at the cost of losing some of the boxes. I also took a close-up shot of the razor shells in the red box -Photograph 3. Sometimes the whole story cannot be told in just one picture.

Razor shellfish – the crew have to dive for this highly-prized delicacy, and each shellfish is collected by hand from the seabed. These boxes were heading straight to Hong Kong, but one not would not get there – the divers let me eat one straight from the shell – wonderful! I deliberately left a lot of red in the framing of this picture because I liked the colour combination

Photograph 4

With boats coming and going, picture opportunities were constantly presenting themselves. This skipper popped his head out of the wheelhouse for just a fleeting moment and you must always be ready to capture these fleeting moments. The ketchup bottles have added a nice touch

 Photograph 6

The ice-making machine drew my attention when one of the workers filled a container with ice to cover the freshly-caught fish. He pulled a lever and –

whoosh! Down came the ice. I quickly reset my exposure to 1/500 at f3.3 to ‘freeze’ some of the ice cubes

Photograph 5

Many hands make light work as boxes of prawns are hauled ashore. Looking down on the subject like this while using a wide angle lens has meant that I have had to include a large area of uninteresting concrete in the foreground. I have gone some way to disguise this by stroking over the bottom right of the picture with a large ‘Burn’ tool brush in Photoshop set at about 10% opacity. This has created a mild vignetting effect which helps lead the eye over it and into the picture

More photographs and tips about this project coming soon

Go to part two of Photographing fishermen

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