I'm not sure that I would be so much into the whole fishing thing if it was merely about catching fish for me. I am not for one second about to lose the inherent thrill that all anglers get from that initial hook up, but more and more over the years this thing that we know as fishing for me has come to mean perhaps as much if not more from the visual point of view. Photographing fishing is a big part of my job, but it's far more than just work to me. Give me a good looking place, some half-decent light and an angler in the middle of it all and I am about as happy as possible. I love it when the light gets really interesting, but like anybody who lives in the UK and goes through all kinds of weather in the year, I can also dig those big, simple blue sky days when it just feels good to be outside.
But the light is not always to die for, indeed a big part of making fishing look as appealing as possible is understanding how to best use the conditions you have in front of you. On this particular day I was on a shoot for a magazine and the light was about as flat, dull and boring as you could possibly hope to get. Not remotely ideal, but it's a job and you need to deliver the images. Fly fishing is such a good looking way of fishing when it all goes to plan, but on this day I will admit that I was struggling to make it look anywhere close to appealing. So how about looking around for patterns, tones and strange shapes? Sometimes it's the little detail shots that give me a lift on a day like that. A stocked rainbow trout in a landing net hardly looks very cool, but now get in really tight and shoot it with an abstract slant and it comes to life. As much as I love this shot though, from memory I don't think the magazine actually used it!
I love all kinds of water, but at heart I am always that bit fired up around the sea. I could spend days and days on the stunning river Lyn in north Devon for example, indeed it's one seriously special place, but I just dig the sea a little bit more I suppose. Those areas where the land so boldly meets the sea, that is what does it for me. The unpredictability of it all really floats my boat, and from a photography point of view the need to be able to move fast and take advantage of ever-changing light is vital. I can not overestimate the need to know your way around your camera so that is it working for you and not against you. The shot above is nothing without that gorgeous early evening softness lighting up the scene, but on the rugged west coast of Ireland things change sometimes from minute to minute.
I think that a big attraction to spending time around smaller rivers is the whole feeling of intimacy that they can give you. Moving water really gets to me, and I love the way that a fly angler can seem to be so at one with the river. Give me a wide lens any day of the week, but as much as they let you include lots of good looking sky, they can also help you with this whole intimacy thing. OK, so you need a fisherman who does not mind somebody like me doing his best to move around quietly (who, me?), because you need to get in close with a wide lens to help convey this connection between the river and the angler.
I took this photograph just a few days ago in south east Cornwall - in between some mighty storms I might add. Sometimes everything comes together so perfectly that all you really need to do is to frame up and fire away. How anybody could not be inspired to try and record a vista like this I will never understand. Fishing puts us out there at all times of the day and night, and I am sure you have noticed that the most exciting light tends to come as bad weather starts to break up and clear. This can also be a time when conditions get exciting for bass fishing, so for me it's killing two birds with one stone. I love it. How can anybody not love light like this? Yes, it's a very simple photograph, but at heart fishing is also a very simple thing to do. Perfect symmetry if you ask me.
Readers in the UK can buy the Hardy products mentioned in this article online from Hardyfishing.com - click here to shop online.
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