A Day On The Waves

Boats and me don't really mix so last week I wasn't quite looking forward to spending 12-hours out at sea. Thankfully, as if it was some special reprieve for a leap year (it was the 29th), we were graced with calm(ish) seas and at times, what felt like T-shirt weather!

Boats are a real challenge to shoot on. It's hard enough working in tight spaces on land, but doing it on a 10ft x 18ft boat deck that was rolling all over is even harder. Add in the fact you are limited on vantage points, and it's something that you quickly have to get used to.

"General shots like this demand a wide lens and getting your timing right not only to get thing level in the swell, but also the lighting and the position of the anglers."

I was out shooting for Total Sea Fishing magazine, a magazine I like working on if only because of the variety of destinations it takes me to. This day we were out of Newhaven, Sussex on the Carrick Lee skippered by Frank Shaw. Franks old Carrick Lee was a large double-hull that was massive, so it was a bit of a surprise to find that he'd changed to a smaller single-hulled boat. Immediately, I knew the majority of my shooting would be on the 14mm Sigma, although I was wishing I'd not sold my 10.5mm fisheye. On boats there's little need for anything longer than 50mm in reality.... it's a crowded workspace with bodies everywhere (plus equipment) and there are so few opportunities to shoot across the deck.

I'd brought a load of off-camera flash gear too, in the hope that I'd have an opportunity to create some funky lighting but again, too many moving bodies meant flashes could be obscured, plus the boat moves around so much in relation to the sun, the lighting is a nightmare; one minute you're shooting in full sun, the next you're shooting into it and having to power flash into the shadows. In the end I just decided to go with an on-camera SB-700. I shot some stiff on TTL but when it came to the catch shots I knew it'd be a bi quicker to set it to manual to quickly change the ambient/flash levels.

Anyway, steaming 25 miles out was a case of focussing and not letting the sickness kick in. The great thing about boat fishing is that you quickly have to bond with the people alongside you. I knew no one but the journalist with me (Barney Wright) and the skipper, who is a no-nonsense guy who speaks his mind and more often than norm has you in stitches.

Thankfully, and I won't bore you with the technical details, we caught a load of fish, mainly cod, with a 20lb 4oz fish falling to Barney's mate, Matt Todd. He was chuffed as is to be expected. I spent so long behind the lens that I only got about 30 minutes fishing in at the end of the day when the tide had slackened and it was pap.

"Matt Todd with his 20-pounder. Framed with a lot of space around the subject so we could possibly use this as a double-page spread (DPS). I also shot a portrait version for use on a single page or a cover."

Feature in the bag, we had a 90-minute steam back to port (we'd been steadily move back to shore through the day) so while the boys were doing the filleting - another bonus of these jobs is a lot of fresh fish for the pot - I got the 70-200mm out to try and get some shots of the gulls that were following the boat. It was fascinating to watch several species of gull all vying for the tit-bits thrown overboard. But at times, there seemed to be something that drew the birds alongside the boat, a bit like those films of dolphins you see in the wake of a speeding boat. They were hanging serenely in the air beside us, often close enough to have leapt out to touch even if there was 40-metres of water beneath! They were fascinating to watch and had me transfixed through the journey back. Safe to say, I rattled off about 8GB of raw shots but the birds' movement was so quick that much of the time it was impossible to track them properly. I probably had about 7.5GB of blurred, out of focus bird photos. I was out of my depth.

I managed to rattle a few good ones off after I realised a two-button reset was required to get my AF back to something useable - faffing around with settings should be left to the experts! I'm actually happy with the gull shots bearing in mind we were doing something like 15 knots. One even got entered into an online photo comp, although at the time of writing I'm not in the running.

On reflection, I loved the day and came away wanting to go out again soon. I love the banter on board, I love the photography challenges, and when it's not rocking and rolling, I love the feeling of freedom you only get when you're somewhere remote.