A necessary view in to Guernsey's Fishing Industry.

As a Guernsey born photographer I have grown up around the sea, one of my first memories is being out on the little fourteen foot, family fishing boat. As an island I feel we have an extremely close relationship with the sea, up until the turn on last century the sea was the only way off this island. We depend on the the sea and its resources to sustain our way of life.

An exam title of “Story Telling” was the option that most appealed to me, I’m very much in to the idea of Photojournalism which makes this ideal. having gone away with this title and done some serious brain storming I came up with the idea of following a fisherman throughout his day. Recently the media has picked up on the idea of this by filming television documentaries on board commercial tuna and crab fishing boats in the USA.

I’m good friends with a few fishermen, I spoke to them and Brandon offered me a place on board the boat he works for, The Petit Mel. I went down to the Quay to have a look at the boats and find out as much about the conditions I’d be in as possible. I was warned about taking a camera on board this time of year as the sea here is notoriously rough. For an island of only thirty square miles, we have our own dedicated shipwreck museum!

I was determined to be one of the first Guernsey photographer to shoot on board a commercial fishing boat in February. I knew that I would need a lot of duck tape to waterproof my equipment.

Artist Study - Corey Arnold

A page from Corey Arnolds Flickr.

Corey Arnold is one of my favourite artists, he really was one of the big inspartations for me to undertake this project. Corey is an Alaskan commercial Fisherman and Photographer, he has worked aboard many fishing vessles across the world. He is devoted to a lifelong project called "fish work", he has recieved grants form American foundations to photograph fishing industires right round the planet. I think that I can relate to him as we both have fished from an early age and have a passion for photography in difficult and challenging conditions.

Corey When he was younger fishing with his father.

http://www.coreyfishes.com

Critical Study One

Overview

This image Is dominated by the brighttness of the fishermans oil skins, the colour orange is so overwhelming that it manages to take your eye off of the incredibly stormy sea and douzens of seagulls. The side of
the boat and the winch work as a bottom and left frame to the shot. They make the bottom left corner seem to carry a lot more weight than the rest of the image. To get a similar image to this I will have to frame the fisherman in a similar position and use a deep depth of field such as F8 or higher. This will insure th whole of my image is in focus like this one. He also seems to have used a fast shutter speed to freeze all the action going on. You can see this by the birds being perfectly captured. A fast shutter speed can also wash out colours which is whats happened to the sky here.

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds is well demonstrated here with the fishermans head almost exactlyon two intersecting thirds.This puts his body inline with a very striking area of the image.

Lines

This image is a labrinth of intersecting lines. Though not a single one of them is horizontal? This is because Corey was trying to get the feeling of motion onboard the boat in to the image. Confused Diagonal lines like these above give the image the feeling of motion due to their unstableness.

Colours

As you can see, by using the cutout filter on photoshop I have isolated the main colours in the image to a much narrower range. It seems that the colours go from faint and bright in the top right hand corner, to strong and dark in the bottom left. This backs up my earlier point of there being more weight in the bottom left. It works like a graduation, the colour is far more saturated in the bottom left which makes you look there first. Its also where the majority of the action in the photograph is too.

Critical Study Two

Overveiw

There are several species in this shot, a great variety of flatfish to lobster, to sole to crab. It is well exposed and has a shallow depth of field.

The Golden Ratio

Framing

Critical Study 3

Overview

The Golden Ratio

The Golden ratio is a similar format to the rule of thirds, however the the main importance of the image is actually focused on the centre.

Use of Lines

Critical Study 4

Overview

Composition

Colours

Shoot Plan For Shoot One

I chose to shoot on board the boat for my first shoot, I have a good freind who works on Board the Petit Mel commercial fishing vessel, with his help I spoke to the captain and asked to shoot on board. The Captains name is Dougal Lane, he has been fishing for most of his life and has an incredible wealth of knowlage about the industry.

I was told I could go with them any day they were fishing, however due to adverse weather conditions I had to wait for the storms to die down. The weather was stsrting to calm down and was forcast to be calm on wednesday the 19th of Febaruary (8-9mph)

I had bought some new equiptment for the shoot as I knew it would be so demanding on my camera. I bought two spare batteries, two extra memory cards, extra lens cleaning cloths and a waterproof case.

Before the shoot I took some time to carefully think about the things I would need to take with me. I came up with this list.

Canon 5D

24-105 mm Lens

70-300 mm Lens

3 Batteries

3 Memory cards

Waterproof case

Duct tape

Lens cleaning kit

Rucksack to contain all camera eqiptment

Oil Skins

Wellies

Life Jacket

Waterproof jacket

Gloves

Warm Clothes

Hat

Guernsey Weather Forecast (www.xcweather.co.uk)

On Wednesday I was to be at the harbour for 07:00 to leave in time for the tide. I turned up with all my equiptment and boarded the boat. I looked around the boat and started to get my bearnings, I placed a small time lapse camera on to the side of the hull just to document my travel.

Contact Sheets For Shoot One