Potting on Seahouses shellfish catamaran Standsure

This selection of images taken onboard Seahouses skipper Jonathan Dawson’s potting catamaran Standsure BK 552 was taken by photographer Gareth Easton. Eighteen months ago he put on the exhibition ‘Images from the North Sea’, following a trip on the Peterhead pair-seiner Budding Rose.

I started photographing the fishing industry in the UK about three years ago.

Above: Standsure – an under-10m Gemini catamaran, built in 2000 – ready to leave Seahouses harbour at dawn.

I was already a professional commercial photographer when I was approached by Seafish to undertake a commission documenting the industry from net to plate. I loved photographing the industry for Seafish and my fishing work portfolio has become an ongoing personal body of work.

Photographing fishing is difficult. There’s no doubt about that. Saltwater and camera equipment just don’t go well together. My fishing adventures have generated over £2,000 of insurance claims in the past 18 months. I have learned to work better over the past two years, but still have yet to to complete a trip without damaging something.

These photographs document a day in September 2017 aboard the Seahouses potting catamaran Standsure, fishing for lobster and brown crab between the Farne Islands and Beadnell off the Northumberland coast. The trip came about as a result of meeting skipper Jonathan Dawson a few weeks earlier, while working in Seahouses for Seafish.

It was a beautiful September morning with reasonably calm seas. Calm seas are a mixed blessing – easier photography, but less dramatic images! As I have always found on fishing boats around the UK, the guys working onboard were great to be around. Hugely accommodating, helpful, tolerant of my endless presence, and enthusiastic about the tough work they do.

Further examples of Gareth Easton’s work can be seen here.

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