“Cod-fishing uses no bait, it’s done with a four-pronged hook weighted in the center“

Line fishing is an activity a little too nihilistic for my personal taste – something I avoid doing ever since I started diving along fishermen and seen the visible disdain of fish towards hooks and baits. Cod-fishing uses no bait, it’s done with a four-pronged hook weighted in the center, on a line lowered to the depths where there’s hope to find cod (typically between 40 and 80 m). The fish may be going about its personal business, and is caught literally “by accident”, hooked by body or tail as the hook goes up and down via rhythmic vertical movements of the arm of whomever may be fishing on the boat.

One of my first days in the water, swimming around the boats while requesting permission to photograph any fish that might be caught, I met a very kind and talkative Norwegian who became one of my favorite subjects (he’s pictured in another photo of this exhibition) – it was fresh in the water and in the air (some -5ºC above water, I actively decided not to check temperature of water), and I think seeing a dude swimming around with a large camera in those conditions triggered his best dadaist mood. We talked and laughed a lot – helped by the severity of my broken Norwegian – and in the end he gave me this cod, freshly caught.

Since Norwegian call codfish the “gold from the sea”, I decided I should try to photograph it as if it was a precious jewel, with the studio lighting generally used for top-models, while throwing lots of water at it. It took me over an hour to clean the floor and get rid of the fishy smell…

P

“seeing a dude swimming around with a large camera in those conditions triggered his best dadaist mood“