I mentioned in the past a mini photo essay I did one morning in Peterhead, Northern Scotland, about the local fishermen. I drive up in the middle of the night in freezing December to catch them coming in at dawn.
Peterhead is a small village in the far North of Scotland. The main fishing port used to be Aberdeen, but the oil industry took over because they could afford higher harbour access prices so the fishermen have been pushed North. Even in Peterhead, they’re getting invaded by the oil-related vessels.
I was there at about 4am in December 2005. The only camera I had at the time was my 350D with no tripod. Needless to say that it was majorly out of its depth: pushing ISO 1600 means very high noise and banding. It soldiered on in the rain, but it showed its limitations. But it doesn’t matter, the point is the gritty content, for which noise is appropriate.
The boats are not huge. They’re trawlers, the activity is industrial, but they’re not the massive vessels you see on TV when fishing is shown. The activity is clearly still a familial affair.
I’d say the largest boats are maybe 20m long.
The harbour itself is fairly small. It has clearly been expanded in the last few years to accommodate larger oil industry vessels, but it’s still a small country port.
The first boat to come in gets the corner spot.
Once the vessels all come in, and it happens at the same time, they park next to each other.
Once the boats are parked, it’s time to unload. The first task is to plug in to use port electricity instead of engines. A lot of the oil industry vessels don’t (price?) so they run their engines 24h/day. I used to work in an office on Aberdeen harbour and every Monday morning we’d have to clean the black soot on our desks.
Of course there are exceptions and some run their engines all the time.
Then the unloading starts. The packing of the fish if often done on the boats at sea so that they’re ready to unload and deliver the minute they get to port.
Once the cargo is unloaded, the fishing nets are also unloaded for inspection and repairs.
The fishermen are pestered by seagulls who want their breakfast.
I was amused by that sign. It sounded like a mafia thing.
By 9am the activity slowed down and the daylight started to appear (in Northern Scotland, days are very short in the winter), so I made my way home. I would have liked to take more photos, but I was getting cold and wet. I was also worried about my camera (the 350D was far from weather sealed). I would also have liked to talk to the fishermen, but I didn’t have the confidence at the time.
#Photography #Documentary #PhotoEssay