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.
Here are a few new ones from my PEW sponsored photo documentary of the EU fishing industry. Just a little sneak preview, there is much more work to come!
Trawl Work, Peterhead, Scotland / photo: Corey Arnold
All the species in one Prawn Haul, Peterhead Scotland / photo: Corey Arnold
Monkfish, Peterhead Fish Market, Scotland / photo: Corey Arnold
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’m just back from a trip in the Bering Sea aboard a Pollock trawler and getting over the random bout of pneumonia upon return. Stay tuned for more pictures after the story goes to print.
I’m excited to release a handful of new images from my latest trip to the Bering Sea in January. I worked as a replacement crewman for an injured friend aboard the f/v Rollo for an Opilio crab trip and took some pictures a long the way. Five of these images will be featured in the Portland 2010 – A Biennial of Contemporary Art exhibition which will open on March 20th. The prints will be my largest ever made… up to six feet wide. See the following blog post for directions and more information.
Freedom Bird, 2010 / photo: Corey Arnold
Arctic Hunter, 2010 photo: Corey Arnold
Salt Birds, 2010 photo: Corey Arnold
photo: Corey Arnold
I didn’t know Phil Harris well, but from the few meetings we had in Dutch Harbor, I found him to be a really nice guy… especially when I wasn’t pointing my camera in his face. We will all miss his presence in Dutch. The world knows him as the skipper of the Cornelia Marie from Discovery’s Deadliest Catch but now perhaps, he is more famous then ever before. To the friends and family of Phil, I’d like to offer my condolences.
photo: Corey Arnold
It’s been a rough season in Dutch Harbor with at least five major traumas occurring in the Bering Sea this year. Many are healing and some will never be the same. This will certainly be an Opi season to forget.
This place is underrated for sure.
I spent June and July this summer commercial fishing for salmon in Bristol Bay and following up with pictures on last years Outside magazine story about the proposed Pebble mine. It’s been very busy over here with magazine assignments, my salmon business and upcoming group exhibitions so I’ve only just begun to sort through the summers huge arsenal of new pictures! As soon as I’m home for a solid week or two, I’ll be adding a ton of new images to the site. Hopefully, I’m not crying wolf again this time.
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.
I just wrapped up a 1.5 month venture into Bristol Bay, Alaska where I’ve started my own commercial salmon catching business. Lot’s of pictures and a new portfolio category to come soon!
But first, lots of catching up to do back home. 102 degrees here in the office in Portland, and record temps while I was in Alaska as well. Something’s fishy!
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!
Man, its been awhile. King crab season was calm and lovely for the most part but the crab were skiddish and it took twice as long to catch our quota. Two weeks instead of one? I’ve got nothing to complain about. Lots of news! But I’ll save it for the next post.
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.
From the long journey: Dutch Harbor to Seattle a few weeks ago.
The Deadliest Catch box set for season 3 is out. My portrait of Matt is on the cover (he found it a bit embarrassing)
We’re still in Alaska and have just completed our third tour for Opilio Crab aboard the Rollo. Tonight we leave for the Pribilof Islands to hunt the illusive Bairdi Crab. There is no money to be made off this lousy crab and we are in for possibly a “hell on earth” experience. At least my kitty is on board to contort and hang upside-down for entertainment. This month Blackpool Magazine out of Paris has printed a large portfolio of my images. I haven’t seen it yet, but appears to be a great mag which, like Fecal Face, mixes art with a touch of skateboard culture.
Hi, I’m changing my status to U.S. resident for at least the next year. After crab season which starts for me in a week, My official home will be in Portland, Oregon and I have a new phone number:503-853-2050. The Fishermen’s News has been using some pics lately. They are an old school commercial fishing newspaper out of Seattle. I’m off to Alaska in one week for another King Crab season so email response could be a bit spotty!
Another King crab season has come and gone. Rationalization has claimed the jobs of at least 800 crabbers. The Rollo will luckily continue to fish. Discovery Channel filmers Jeff and Todd kept us talking. Meanwhile coreyfishes has been busy shooting stills for the Discovery Channel, Dagbladet Søndag, and Widerø airlines magazine in Norway. Ripe Magazine out of Vancouver has some Coreyfishes images inside, and Stay Honest magazine in NYC will have a nice series of my horny cat coming out soon. The Coreyfishes exhibition “Crabbing in the Bering Sea: photographs from the F/V Rollo 2003-2005″ at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle opened on Thursday. A nice turn out and a lovely spread of cheeses and pickled herring as well as an open bar made for a pleasant evening that quickly became morning. The photos will be up until the end of February. Anyone thinking about buying a print should consider it a fundraiser for my Norway fishing project!
