Life And Work On A Fishing Boat

I took this just before dusk in a working harbour, where boats aren’t romanticised—they’re tools, piled with other tools, patched, rusted, functional. Riviera isn’t posing. It’s docked, burdened with skiffs, plastic crates, folded nets, and the quiet fatigue of a long shift at sea.

The composition pushes tight against the frame, stacking hulls on hulls, blocking any clear horizon. The visual noise—cables, ropes, red crane arm—disrupts the scene enough to pull you into its clutter. The sky, soft and forgiving in the background, does little to alleviate the heaviness of the vessel. That contrast matters.

Technically, the image holds despite the mixed lighting. The fading day cast a bluish tint over the foreground, while the cloud-streaked sunset tried to push warmth into the upper frame. The colour balance tilts cold, but appropriately so—this isn’t golden-hour glamour. Detail is preserved well in the shadows of the boat’s stern and the textures of the chipped paint. No sharpening tricks, no contrast overcompensation. It’s left rough, as it should be.

What interested me wasn’t nostalgia or seascape serenity. It was the idea of weight—real, visible, working weight. Boats like this don’t belong on postcards. They belong to the people who rely on them, and that’s who I had in mind when I pressed the shutter.

Nothing to do with Caro Emerald’s tune. Life on a fishing boat isn’t exactly a holiday…