The Chameleon Approach
Monday, June 27th, 2011
Krk, Croatia
I really have doubts if the fish would buy this…
Archive for the ‘fishermen’ Category
Gone Fishing
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Not the blue sky nor the blue sea, just the pyramid shape of the young men grouped on the rocks made me take out the camera.
A second take of the same scenery shows more context, but alas, the “perfection” of the pyramid is already dissolved.
sofobomo: a victim of the selection process
Friday, June 19th, 2009
nice synonym for the catch i sometimes find on my flash cards. but sometimes those emblematic empty bottles just hide their merits (or less sugarcoated: they have to wait for a more clear-sighted moment). carl weese hinted in a comment he made yesterday on the value of an archive and the necessity of a 2nd look, and of course he is right. especially the rejected images deserve this re-evaluation, and in this way i found my empty bottles.
postscriptum: i have uploaded the book to issuu, too, and am astonished how hassle-free this was. so if you want to see it more book-style in a nifty flash version, klick here: Batticaloa Fishermen on issuu.
sofobomo 09: strengthening my vision
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
reviewing my selection process for the images to be included into the book, i made an interesting observation, for which today’s lead shot can serve as an example. during the first review of the pictures within days after their creation, i had a very different attitude towards their qualities. the image above came out only 2nd, the lower image, already posted on 2009/05/20, won.
now creating a set for the sofobomo book, the criteria changed. the silhouette of the man in the lead image won over the more interesting structure of the water. and suddenly i realized that for too long a time i had tried to carefully avoid people in my images of situations and sceneries. for a reason unknown to myself even now i did not want humans in the photographs. only now i felt the added value that men/women and their interaction bring even into such scenes.
and here lies for me the added benefit of sofobomo: i had to re-evaluate my images, thoroughly weighing there merits plus their function in a sequence, something i wouldn’t have done without this project. and i think this improved my vision.
sofobomo 09: finished it is
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
finished. after some intensive hours my sofobomo 09 book is ready. it is available from the sofobomo website here: batticaloa fishermen. scribus proofed to be a reliable tool for this work, it can only be recommended. the resulting pdf is 7 mb for more than 40 images with 150dpi, so compression works reasonably well. plans are to get it printed by blurb, the layout was carefully crafted for the small square book that blurb offers.
and having completed it gives a good feeling, i can tell you!
kalmunai catch
Saturday, October 25th, 2008
for me as living in the european alps, beeing at the seaside and watching the fishermen means alway a bounty of photographic opportunities. golden early morning light made those fishes an interesting pattern of metallic glistening hydrodynamically highly efficients bodies
the outrigger boats are a fascinosum by themselves. while the shape is a classical dugout canoe, the hull nowadays is made from fiberglass. however those planks to increase freeboard are not integral part of the modern hull but are still separately mounted on top of the traditional log-boat shape.
landing the leviathan
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008
the recitations of the muezzin woke me up after a short night, but i was grateful for this invitation to start the new day early. my hotel was next to the beach – the tsunami at that time had not done much damage as the structure was new and sturdy concrete – so after 10 minutes i was out in the golden light. walking around, not yet decided on what to concentrate, i suddenly saw a scenery that reminded my very much of hemingways “the old man and the sea”.
the presence of me photographing probably made the crowd surrounding the swordfish even bigger, and before negotiating the price they wanted group photos to be taken.
for roughly 170 US$ the trader made the deal, and soon after one of the fishermen came up and chopped away the non-marketable parts, leaving only the torso to be iced and kept for transport.
the crows were already waiting for the remainders of this beautiful animal, one of the fastest in the sea. ironically, while prices especially of the red-tipped-fin subspecies are high up for assumed aphrodisiac effects, in europe the meat would not be allowed to the market: swordfish collect great amounts of cadmium and quicksilver, and the older and bigger the specimen, the higher the concentration of the toxics
long shadows on the beach
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
batticaloa beach again – a real bonanza of photographic opportunities this has turned out to be. my first pictures dates back to 2004, still before the tsunami. at that time i had only 1.5 days there and was surprised about the peaceful place batticaloa was then. to my utmost luck my friends idea of going there with the families for christmas holidays did not materialize. 2nd day of christmas 2004 the tsunami struck.
hauling in the net
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
the raw files from the last sri lanka mission are still a treasure chest. today i found this one. some adjustments in lightzone created a picture that appeals a lot to me – definitely not a “picture that sucks” as it was the topic of paul lester’s post yesterday.
the recipe given there ‘practice, practice, practice’ is a good one, but in my experience somtimes a pat on the back from an experienced, open-eyed fellow can help a lot to bring one’s vision forward. that’s the reason why i am deliberating about visiting a workshop.
fishermen at sunrise
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
the beauty of sunrise again. the kitsch-or-not-kitsch debate i have decided for myself to be not-existing anymore: beauty is a superior principle, taste is something indivdual and nobody has to like or dislike what i happen to like. for me this beauty (and my activity of capturing it) has a high value of its own, otherwise i would not bother to overcome jet lag, face tmvp militias in the form of 16yr old boys wearing kalashnikovs (oh no, not terrorists, on the “good” side!) and walk to a beach lugging around 2 kg of glass and electronics. so much for motivation.
even the klichee-like sunrise with palms: i don’t want to resist. those early morning moments, between night and day, are mysterious, powerful, promising, loaded with energy, still quiet but already carrying the noise of the day – they are just great.
kalmunai fishermen
Saturday, May 31st, 2008
first post after 17 days. not that i had given up photography or was just lazy. no, i was simply without network connect – thanks to my administration which didn’t bother to come up with a gprs connection for my mobile (only applied for it 5 months ago) – in eastern sri lanka on a business trip. and business kept me busy so i couldn’t go to one of the internet cafes. ok, the first days i was too busy but then incidents started so i didn’t want to go any more. that whole sri lanka could be heaven on earth without that bloody war (pun intended) and not enough that singhalese and tamils fight since 25 years, now also the muslims and the tamils use kalashnikov bullets as arguments. it makes a difference reading about this in the newspaper or walking into a 16 year old chap without uniform but with a gun. ok, he was friendly “what’s your name, where do you come from…” but probably due to my white skin, which is giving me an edge down there. in the 11 days i spent in batticaloa, probably 10 people were killed in the neighbouring towns, for political reasons.
you see from this burst of words how upset and fed up i am.
photography-wise it still has to be evaluated: 20 gig of raw files, but mostly of official events. at least i took my chance to sometimes get up really early (sunrise is at 5:45) and go to the fishermen at the beach, here in kalmunai.
fishermen at batticaloa beach
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
these fisherman lived in a village swept away by the tsunami. their resettlement area is 3km far away (plus crossing the lagoon by boat), but they still come to their old place to fish in the sea. knowing that their families are now safe from further waves is a great pacification for them.
the city of Munich’s help tsunami help project built a stretch of road for them, so they can sell their catch now to remote markets (say: Colombo) for a sometimes better price.
This time i was accompanied by a co-worker who is a trained psychiatrist. she openened my eyes in explaining the fishermen’s behaviour still so strongly influenced by the tsunami and their feeling of helplessness and ongoing feeling of guilt. the trauma still lives on in them and expresses itself in their eyes, their words, their gestures…