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Final year project
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Hey guys
I’m in my final year in DCU studying journalism and i’m hoping to specialise in photojournalism (well duh :D) Anyhoooo for our final thesis we don’t have to write a book (whooooohooooooo) and they’ve kindly given us many options including doing a photography project, much to my delight. I don’t know why but I almost immediately knew what I wanted to do. I’d like to document the fishermen of Howth Harbour, perhaps focus on one boat and follow it’s crew as they work. So of course I have lots of questions before I get started.
1. Will a 40D in a waterproof housing be good enough?
2. What chances would I have of getting permission/access to carry out my project to its fullest potential?
3. Who should I talk to re. getting permission? Harbour master/boatcrews/captains etc.Don’t know if any of you have any experience doing sea/fishing photography but any advice at all to get me up and running, maybe things I haven’t thought of. Cheers
James
Sounds like a good project alright-
It might help if you’re well prepared-
wetgear, lifejacket-The boats are in the harbour quite a bit,
so just go down and talk to people-
they can be very friendly, and they might be able to point you in the right direction-And the shore based maintenance and preparation might be a part of the story too.
There are a few different types of fishing boat,
and they might all need to be covered-Are you planning on doing this soon?
Just be careful, the best weather is the worst weather, if you get my drift-
And read some of the memorials around the harbour too-j
I’d like to cover the entire operation but with a focus on one particular vessel, individual. Sort of like the great photo essays of old. Found the site of that guy from Deadliest Catch so i’ve e-mailed him as his work is amazing. Also looking into getting a waterproof camera. The sea and sea DX1G looks pretty nice although I can’t find any hi-res samples anywhere. The shots I take have to be top quality (albeit A4 prints) so i’ll be needing a good camera, not sure my 350D with a housing will be good enough.
Hi Sancho,i have been a trawlerman for 20 years,so if you have any Q’s fire away.Have landed in howth before, but maily land into dunmore east these days.
Sean.
That’s great Sean, never knew there was a fisherman among us here :)
Well my first concern would be gaining permission as i’m sure the last thing a trawler needs is someone getting in the way taking pictures. Another thing is I probably would be starting the project at perhaps the worst time of the year weather wise, how dangerous is it out of Howth, I would presume much safer than on the Atlantic side…The subject has been covered many times but the best work i have seen was by Jean Gaumy a Magnum photographer. He coverd the subject over a number of years and produced a very distinctive book Men at Sea or the original french version Pleine Mer. Both books are mentioned in the Martin Parr Gerry Badger Photobook series so may become expensive over time. Gaumy’s style is very distinctive and the book style itself is unique , thats why Parr and Badger mention it. It should be very inspiring for your project. The English version of the book is available and is reasonably priced 2nd hand or new at the moment, you might even get it in your college library.
Here is some of his work, http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/C.aspx?VP=Mod_ViewBoxInsertion.ViewBoxInsertion_VPage&R=2TYRYD1MDY1F&RP=Mod_ViewBox.ViewBoxThumb_VPage&CT=Album&SP=Album
Good luck with your project.
Hey Sancho,
As it happens I’m a diver (not professionally) and I do some underwater photography. It turns out there’s a few catches and so on for the U/W equipment. If you’re planning not to shoot underwater but just protect your camera against water splashing everywhere while you’re on the deck, or even want to take the camera for a swim and so on, there’s a few options you have.
First, you can go for an underwater housing. They are the safest solution, but at the same time are very heavy (they are designed to be neutrally buoyant or slightly negatively buoyant in the water; they don’t have to be light on the surface), and they are also quite cumbersome to use (again, especially on land). If you want to have a look at one, I can show you mine (I’m based in Dundalk, but go quite often to Dublin). Also, the controls are quite strange to use – it’s certainly not the easiest thing to use on land :) Then there’s a whole thing with different ports for different types of lenses (both for their length and the type of glass at the end – more important underwater than on the surface really, but you need to be aware of that as well; for example you need to use a dome port type for wide angle lenses and a flat port for tele). And last, but not least, the housings are typically quite expensive – they can cost as much or more than the camera you want to put them in.
There’s another option that I was looking at myself – there’s a company called EWA Marine and they do what looks like a plastic bag. You put your camera inside, you can seal it (they claim its rated to 15-50m underwater), they have a glass port for the lens which you attach to the lens and so on. Because they are essentially plastic bags, they would be much lighter and probably easier to use than the housing.
Give me shout (you can PM me if you like) and I can give you more info.
Best Regards and good luck – it really looks like a nice project you’ll be working on! and I enjoyed the Deadliest Catch myself :)
mike
Wow just took a look through Jean Gaumy’s work, it’s fantastic! cheers for the link Eddie. That’s pretty much what i’d be hoping to achieve…minus the lovely film grain of course :)
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