Photographing fishermen – part 2

Following on from his post – photographing fishermen – Philip Dunn shows more of his pictures of landing the catch, and explains how he took the photographs. The exercise was to photograph the fishermen at work on the harbouside at East Tarbert in Scotland.

Photograph 1
Even though there is no fishing boat in this picture, it is the one I am most pleased with from my photo session on the quayside. This was in the weighing area and I like the way that the man is actually weighing just one prawn so carefully while the other chap scratches his head over the sums.

It was dark in there, but even so, with an ISO of 200 and an aperture of f3.3, I was able to use a shutter speed of 1/60sec. What the sidelight lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality and the quality of the light has greatly enhanced the atmosphere of the photograph

Photograph 2
Don’t forget to gather pictures like these even when you are concentrating on pictures of people working. They help tell the story and will play an important role if you decide to put together a photo essay. They will be essential if you decide to try and sell your feature to a magazine becasue they will also give the magazine layout person options for layout design.

Photograph 3
The skipper of fishing boat Caledonia invited me on board to photograph him and his crew preparing their prawns for landing – an opportunity not to be missed

Finding space to move around and take pictures was very difficult, and the men were far too pre-occupied to be bothered posing for pictures. In these situations you just have to do the best you can to record the scene in front of you. It was very dark in the boat and I used an exposure of 1/15sec at f5.6. A tripod was out of the question and the camera was hand-held

Photograph 4 and 5
When I was invited aboard the Caledonia, my first priority was to photograph the skipper and crew at work, but when that was done I looked around the decks for anything else that might make a picture and spotted these two close-ups.

Once again I was struggling with lack of light so slow shutter speed were wessential. I simply found something to lean agains and made absolutely sure that the shutter button was ‘caressed’ as gently as I once caressed my young bride’s cheek.

Summing up
None of the pictures captured during my evening on the quayside at East Tarbert is spectacular.. But they do illustrate, I hope, the simple methods by which you can achieve the satisfaction of creating a set of photo-journalistic pictures of people going about their everyday tasks. Don’t be afraid to ask permission to get involved with these activities. It doesn’t have to be fishermen, it could be anything from window cleaners to carpenters.

No matter what the job is, it is bound to present you with picture opportunities if you do just a little forward planning and keep your eyes well and truly open.

Prepare your equipment beforehand and have everything ready so that you are not fumbling for a particular lens when you are actually taking pictures – many good picture opportunities are lost for ever this way. Don’t let it happen to you.

Have fun.

 Go back to Part 1 of Photographing  fishermen