Ben and King / Graveyard Point, Alaska ©Corey Arnold 2010
This could very well be my most traveled year ever. After three weeks in Ireland and Scotland, and a few days in Baton Rouge shooting an ad for Capitol One, I was commissioned by Alaska Seafood to photograph fishing families in Juneau, Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, and Naknek. Amazing assignment, and even more amazing people met along the way. From Naknek, I fired up my skiff and set out with good friend/writer/deckhand Tim Sohn for five weeks commercial fishing for sockeye salmon at the mouth of the Kvichak River. Fishing was out of control good. Little sleep was had. Many fish lives were lost.
Back in March/April of this year, I tagged along for some Pollock dragging on the 149 ft. Pacific Prince out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The assignment from OnEarth Magazine (NRDC) was to document the fleets efforts to avoid excessive salmon bycatch and capture the overall feeling of life as a trawlerman in the Bering Sea. Here are some of the spreads as well as a few I like that couldn’t fit into the story. I love assignments that apply 100% to my life’s work.
Cover Photo: Corey Arnold
photo: Corey Arnold
photo: Corey Arnold
Photo: Corey Arnold
photo: Corey Arnold
Photo: Corey Arnold
Photo: Corey Arnold
I’ve recently been commissioned by the Pew Charitable Trust to photograph the state of commercial fishing in the European Union. The project will continue over several trips throughout 2010. Keep your eyes peeled for a whole new body of Fish-Work gone global later this year. I’m on the lookout for contacts in coastal Ireland, Scotland, the Shetlands, Holland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and the Canary Islands so if anyone has connections with the fishing industry in these places, feel free to drop me a line at corey@coreyfishes.com
First stop (next week): Ireland and Scotland
I was recently assigned to photograph five Christian leaders with uniquely Portland-esk qualities for Portland Monthly Magazine. The story is out now for the January issue but you can find the online version here.
Dan Merchant – Christian filmmaker
Photo: Corey Arnold
So I’ve started a group on flickr to track down the world’s most interesting pictures of people holding fish. It’s a momentous moment in a person’s life… holding up that lovely bloody creature that you’ve slaughtered with your bare hands. A trophy and a memory that you will never forget. A moment of triumph captured forever in a photograph. Please join the group and submit some pictures. Snapshots, old photos from your family album, etc. It’s open to all.
In about a years time I will be compiling all the best images and including them in a yet to be announced project. On the last page of the set you can find some childhood picks of me and my father back in the day, Southern Cal. The one above is circa 1984 in Oceanside, California holding the smallest mako shark I’ve ever seen.
Back in May, I shot a portrait of Francis Ford Coppola on his Rubicon Estate in Napa Valley. The spread is out now in the August issue of Esquire. You can read the interview online here.
Last summer I returned to Bristol Bay, Alaska on assignment for Outside Magazine. This is the place that I landed my first commercial fishing job in 1995. It’s a pristine wilderness area, home to caribou and giant brown bears and one of the last great wild salmon producing river systems in North America that hasn’t been exploited by human tinkering… until now. One of the world’s largest deposits of Copper and Gold has been discovered in the headwaters of the Nushagak and Kvichak rivers. Foreign mining companies have converged on the site and hope to dig one of the largest open pit mines in the world, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Tailings from the mine could eventually seep their way into the watershed and destroy the salmon habitat forever. Pick up Outside Magazine this month and check out the hard hitting article written by my pal Tim Sohn.
This summer, I’ll be operating my own fishing vessel in Bristol Bay and will continue my photo project on the region. More picks and a shiny new portfolio section to come. Below are some spreads from the Outside article. They also put up a small web gallery of my picks online. Thanks to all the fisherman that accommodated me for my one month journey around the bay last year!
Discovery used one of my pictures as the main image in a collage created to promote the 2009 season of Deadliest Catch. You can see the step by step process of how they created the collage here. Below is the final Result thanks to creative director Stefan Poulos.
I’ve been working a lot for a wonderful travel magazine based in Montreal, Quebec called En Route. In November, I flew to Maui with the very talented art director Reanna Evoy. The story was about a road trip on the dirty backroads to Hana in a red mustang convertible. I got a bit obsessed with shooting skimboarders and foam rolling in on the beach, but managed to snap a few other photos as well.
Below are some out takes that didn’t get published:
The mustang was embarrassing to drive around in, but practical nonetheless. (note Reanna’s mom in the back seat)
It just occurred to me that these verticals are so huge, you probably won’t fit them on your laptop screen. I like ‘em big so you don’t need to wear your glasses. That way, I can reach my target audience of 60-90 year olds.
Greyhound running fast.
We watched an 80 year old German man in a speedo wade out into the flat calm sea, when a 6 foot high set of shorebreak suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I had one of those “Do I shoot or help?” moments. I chose the latter but the pour guy took quite a beating. This girl made it out alive.
Here are a few of the tears that made it in print…
2008 was a fun year… I was sent to incredible places for mag and ad assignments all year long. In the summer, I shot the “Pioneers of Columbia’s Greater Outdoors” Campaign for Columbia Sportswear. As I shot the still campaign, It was a honor to watch Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys, Riding Giants, Powell Peralta Skateboards) shoot the documentary spots for television during the same trips. Stacy is nice guy and a brilliant director. I used to ride his skateboards religiously when I was 11 years old.
Really good times out there in Galveston, Texas photographing the pioneers of tanker surfing (James Fullbright, Peter Davis, and John Benson) where we were nearly struck down by a massive lightning storm.
On Mount Hood in August, I shot the pioneers of Tundra Golfing, Jim Berg and Paul White Gorski. It was 80 degrees and we picture took atop a glacial canyon that began to rumble and crack… a bit sketchy but snow in August is hard to come by in this hemisphere.
Then we flew to Juneau, Alaska and rose by helicopter to a dog sledding camp on the Mendenhall glacier. We camped in huts on the ice and shot Rachel Scdoris, a hardcore musher that competes in the Iditarod and happens to be legally blind.
Oh, and last but not least we shot Dan Heaton in the Snoqualmie area, who is a great innovator in the sport of off Road Unicycling. The trips were so amazing that each one deserves a proper blog entry with photographs… but this is a start. Thanks to Butler, Stern, Shine and Partners who were a first rate agency to work with.
About a month ago, I was in Galveston, TX… shooting some photos of surfers that ride the breaking wakes of Oil Tankers. A wonderful experience in which I’ll go into depth about in an upcoming blog… but just thought I’d post this one picture of Peter in honor of the good times out there. I hope you all are safe and dry.
I’ve been off the grid in Alaska for nearly a month now photographing the salmon fishermen of Bristol Bay, Alaska. I can’t wait to develop this film and hope that my digital files make the trip after my backup hard drive failed… probably due to jarring skiff rides across the bay. More pics and hopefully a more regularly updated blog will come.
I haven’t seen it in person yet but Seattle’s best free weekly, the Stranger put threw my horse and kitty picture on the Cover! The same picture also made the cover of the January/February issue of Adbusters. Although it’s only 2 inches in size, it is proudly displayed next to a portrait of the soon to be late George W. Bush.
Cover Photo and cover story written by the good folks here at coreyfishes.com for the October issue of National Fisherman!
Just got back from San Francisco where I was on a top secret assignment for New York Magazine. Well maybe not ‘top’ secret but it was a good fun one. Last week I was in the Yukon Territory taking pictures of risky outdoor behavior for En Route, a nice Canadian Travel Mag. Whitehorse, check it out on the map, then go there… it’s a wonderful place.
Lots of stuff is happenin’ right now. I have an 8 page photo spread in this months issue of RE:UP magazine as well as a very flattering review of my May solo exhibition at Richard Heller Gallery in Artweek Magazine. Thanks! I’m also featured in the August issue of Juxtapoz Magazine on the third to last page. Oh, yes and one on the cover of the September issue of Fisherman’s News. Oh, and just got a copy of China’s amazingly huge and surprisingly lovely Vision Magazine. The July issue featured a few pages of my fishin’ pictures.
Giant Robot Magazine issue 43 is out now. Check out the beautiful cover art by my Arctic accomplice Rachell Sumpter… yeah, that’s me with the fish! An interview with Rachell about our trip accompanied with my photos can be spotted inside.
Outside Magazine is featuring one of my photos on the last page in the August issue. Nice people over there. This month, there’s a really nice article about ski culture in Iran. Who knew? Oh, and I just discovered that the Norwegian whaling story I photographed for Outside last year is now online. My portraits accompany a well written article by Philip Armour.
I just did a little how to blog thing on how to find a fishing job in Alaska for my favorite website Fecalface dot com. Tonight I leave for the Inuit village of Shishmaref in Alaska. I’ll be out of touch for a week while searching for Polar Bears via dogsled and meeting some local whaling folk. See you next week!
The Deadliest Catch box set for season 3 is out. My portrait of Matt is on the cover (he found it a bit embarrassing)
