sofobomo status

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using the evening hours for sofobomo work, i learn to master scribus more and more. it turns out that the first framework i had prepared did not make proper use of the templating functionalities, so modifying fonts and text colors turned out to be more tedious then necessary. as i prefer the systematic approach, i first did the necessary refactoring and then only started to fill the frames with pictures, cherishing very much the drag-and-drop possibilities of the digikam asset management software and scribus under ubuntu linux.

what works amazingly well with scribus is the creation of pdfs. i now have 13 images in the book, and limiting the output resolution to 150dpi, scribus makes a 1.7mb pdf file out of this. sounds and looks reasonable, but i still want to check the quality on a better monitor than my laptop's.

oh, and the girl: she's happily using a pump provided by our project and locally built with available material and techniques.

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dancing feet

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still under pressure, this time at the airport already, on the way home. today i got sad news again about the refugee situation in the north of sri lanka - ban ki moon seems to have categorized the situation 'apalling' regarding the government's treatment of the tamil civilians - and he seemingly has seen only the least awful part of it. will try to compile something more coherent about this tragedy. meanwhile i share with you this image from the beach.

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giving something back

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photographing in exotic locations usually means meeting people only once in a lifetime. photographing the not-so-well-off means that you even can't just send a picture or two as email, and even when they write down their address - in the present case i couldn't read it as i don't know tamil.

but in this case i was happy: i had the opportunity to meet the fisherman of this post again and present them a print of the photo where he was posing 5 seconds for me.

it was a joy for him and for me. of course, some others now also want their portrait taken...

this photo on flickr

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catching fish in the waves

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since my first official visit to batticaloa and kalmunai, fishermen were the subject of numerous shots, from beach overviews up to portraits, details of their catch and their tools. this time i brought two small albums as tokens of my gratitude for their acceptance of my photography.

trying to find the essence of the pictures, i am reviewing the raw files several times, judging back and forth which picture to pick and which to reject, also modifying details here and there.yesterdays posting included the scenery with the two men walking, which i had already posted here. the new version crops out the sky, and i like it much better now as for one thing the sky was a bit too rosy, but also because the lack of sky now gives a stronger impression of a vast and powerful ocean.

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repairing the net

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catching the small fish, and only small numbers, is hard work, tearing on muscles and gear. the sharp corals brought by the waves to the shore constantly tear holes into the net. a good part of the morning this fisherman spent repairing the net.

he had a helper, and after having tried one spot and repaired the net, off they went along the beach to another spot where the net was thrown again. half a kilo of small fishes after one hour is definitely not sufficient to feed even a single person, so at this time of the year most of the men go to work as labourers.

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and the best shot i didn't get

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early morning, shortly after sunrise at the beach. half a dozen fishermen are there, but due to the rough sea beach fishery is impossible. one of them tries with a hand net, half an hour of work results in a handful of really small fishes of maybe zero market value. i decided to leave but was gestured to stay, to wait for that single one boat they own that can go deep sea fishing because it has an outboard motor. and then it comes and brings home the catch: a sailfish that makes 8 us$/kg at the market.

after shortly posing for me, the men went off to clean the fish, so i guessed. but no - a motobike was waiting, and 50m away from me - too far for my standard zoom - the fisherman takes the rear seat, and with the fish on his shoulder they head for the market. this would have been *the* shot.

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throwing the net

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two more from the beach. the waves are so high at the moment that the traditional paddled outrigger fishery from the beach has to pause. no fishery means no income, so some of the men take their hand net and throw it from the shore. catch is low however.

the day i met them they merely got two handful of fish in the morning, definitely not sufficient to nourish a family. poverty in the city is often combining an acceptable income with bad living conditions, but here in the villages the lack of incomes is what hurts the people the most, and this is the situation where sometimes the children have to add to the family income instead of attending school.

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landing the leviathan

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the recitations of the muezzin woke me up after a short night, but i was grateful for this invitation to start the new day early. my hotel was next to the beach - the tsunami at that time had not done much damage as the structure was new and sturdy concrete - so after 10 minutes i was out in the golden light. walking around, not yet decided on what to concentrate, i suddenly saw a scenery that reminded my very much of hemingways "the old man and the sea".

the presence of me photographing probably made the crowd surrounding the swordfish even bigger, and before negotiating the price they wanted group photos to be taken.

for roughly 170 US$ the trader made the deal, and soon after one of the fishermen came up and chopped away the non-marketable parts, leaving only the torso to be iced and kept for transport.

the crows were already waiting for the remainders of this beautiful animal, one of the fastest in the sea. ironically, while prices especially of the red-tipped-fin subspecies are high up for assumed aphrodisiac effects, in europe the meat would not be allowed to the market: swordfish collect great amounts of cadmium and quicksilver, and the older and bigger the specimen, the higher the concentration of the toxics

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yellow fin thuna, batticaloa

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before the winter monsoon rains start, the usual catch for the outrigger boats is small. bigger boats with outboard motors then are the only ones that bring home what they catch by long lines.

even then the catch is small. only 5 small thunas for one early morning of fishing is barely sufficient, given that you have to pay the high fuel price also.

the images were converted in bibble - on the laptop this is a good choice because of the more effective cpu usage than with lightzone - and slightly desaturated to work out the silver color of the fish.

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batticaloa fishermen or the rewards of procrastination

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finding a time to go for a photowalk to the beach at sunrise was difficult during the last mission - jet lag, early appointments, changes of the venue and so on. in the end, i had to take the last morning - and ended up without visible sunrise due to the clouds.

not wanting to return without any picture, i overcame my shyness and asked the fishermen by gesture if they would allow me to take their pictures. and indeed this was not a problem, but the display of the camera broke the ice and we all had fun time.

so what did i learn from this morning: procrastination is not necessarily evil, but will demand more flexibility. to overcome shyness is not that difficult but also a question of self-esteem. having decided to bring an album with the portraits for my next visit makes the whole thing a much less one-sided affair.

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silvery sea

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if there is a single one photographic situation that i do like most, it's backlight in all its variations. it gives so much opportunity for drama, for hiding distracting things, for abstracting from a world full of diverting colors into the essence of shapes and silhouettes. in the picture above as well as in the prior "kalmunai fishermen" the beauty of form is intensified.

in grey past a.k.a. my film days, backlight was always difficult, specifically when shooting slides. in my experience, dslrs are well suited for backlight especially in situations where you can easily chimp or bracket. and my sony a700 seems to keep a lot of highlight information in its raw files for discovery with a suitable tool, lightzone in my case.

this photo on flickr.

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more rain

so I had rain before my holidays and in my holidays. my nephew didn't mind and kept standing in the water in search for a fish. after three unsuccessful days he started using a canoe and voila, out on the lake he was lucky.

this photo on flickr.

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perfect semi-circle

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forgot the best picture in the series...

fishermen at the beach of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. the men in the boat have laid out the net in an almost perfect semi-circle. now the men on the shore prepare to tow the net in.

where this photo was taken? have a look at flickr.yuan.cc/maps/springm

this photo on flickr.

preparing for market

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fishermen at the beach of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. removing the bycatch, including sea snakes, and sorting the fish is the last task. everything went by in quiet mutual understanding, only rarely a command was heard. last of series.

where this photo was taken? have a look at flickr.yuan.cc/maps/springm

this photo on flickr.

the catch is safe

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fishermen at the beach of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. nice catch, safely brought in. due to the civil war situation, market opportunities however are little. The road trip from Batticaloa to Colombo takes 8h plus, even if there are no road blocks.

where this photo was taken? have a look at flickr.yuan.cc/maps/springm

this photo on flickr.

the net is almost in

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fishermen at the beach of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Now the net is almost ashore and the tension eases up. Slowly they are heaving the load in, and some of them secure the lower rim of the net in order not to loose any fish.

and now this photo is geotagged: geo:tool=blockrocker.com
geotagged
geo:lat=7.7211556
geo:lon=81.7174673

this photo on flickr.