It’s now the Icelandic capital’s turn to host the exhibition “Sjómennska í Norðurhöfum — sex túrar á skipum frá Íslandi, Færeyjum, Grænlandi og Hjaltlandseyjum” (At Sea in the Northern Oceans — Six Trips on Fishing Vessels from Iceland, Faroe, Greenland, and Shetland). The combination of choosing the Seamen’s Day, the 5th of June, for the official opening proved very successful.

SLIDE SHOW: Click here to view photos…

Borne out of the old Icelandic tradition of Seamen’s Day, the updated Festival of the Sea is a celebration that honors the many Icelanders who make a living from the ocean. Some of the most popular events included fishing, swimming, sailing and rowing competitions which are hotly contested by a mix of locals and visitors. There were many other events such as arts and crafts activities, food fairs and live musical performances.

SLIDE SHOW: Click on one of the thumbnail images below to view photos.

Fiskeri­ og Søfartsmuseet in Esbjerg had a successful three-month photo exhibition from November 2009 though January 2010 under the heading ‘Ocean Fishing — Six Trips on the North Atlantic’ featuring about 30 photos from my book ‘Images of Fishermen: the North Atlantic’. The exhibition kicked off at the National Maritime Museum in Stockholm 2008, continued to the Nordatlantens Brygge in Copenhagen last year, and will later be taken to Tórshavn and Reykjavik, backed by the prestigious Nordic Culture Fund as one of the main sponsors of the event.

“Marias photos give a nostalgic kick in my heart and provoke a longing for my good old days on the seven seas,” the Faroese member of parliament Mr. Tórbjörn Jacobsen said in his opening speech for the exhibition “Havfiske – seks ture på Nordatlanten” (Ocean Fishing – Six Trips on the North Atlantic) at the Nordatlantens Brygge in Copenhagen.

The 22 May opening was attended by mostly Danish and Faroese visitors, including Mr. Herálvur Joensen and Mr. Árni Olafsson of the Representation Office of the Faroes in Copenhagen, Mr. Ásmundur Guðjónsson of the Nordic Council in Copenhagen, and Nanna Hermansson, of the Swedish Faroese Society.

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Mr. Jacobsen continued: “The countries in the West region of Scandinavia have in many ways a special relationship to the ocean. In the whole human being, physically, mentally, religiously and socially vibrations are formed in relationship to the outside power [i.e. that of the ocean] – for good and bad.”

He added “Maria Olsen is well familiar with these circumstances and in her blood there runs a fisherman with rich streams of saltwater. The catalyst for all in this region… That is why I suppose the ocean has attracted her genetic heritage and antennae to these, in every sense of the word, fantastic cavalcade about fishermen’s life on the North Atlantic. Here we enter a sphere, the collision where man and nature almost merge into one and the same…”

SLIDE SHOW: Click on one of the thumbnail images below to view photos.

/>On the occasion of the release of my book “IMAGES OF FISHERMEN: The North Atlantic”, a traveling photo exhibition is set to be open at Nordatlantens Brygge in Copenhagen next week. The exhibition kicked off successfully at the National Maritime Museum in Stockholm last year and will later be taken to Esbjerg, Reykjavík, Tórshavn and Nuuk, backed by the prestigious Nordic Culture Fund as one of the main sponsors of the event. You are all warmly welcome to the reception opening between 4 - 6 PM, the 22nd of May.

Last week, on the 8th of May, Norðborg, a queen of the seas, finally arrived in its home port of Klaksvík. Hundreds of people were lining up to welcome the vessel and Klaksvik’s mayor Gunvá við Keldu held a speech with brass music and song adding the right feeling to the event. The 83.5m long pelagic factory trawler, the world’s most advanced of its kind, has accommodation for 30 people, and the newbuilding was delivered with the most modern electronics, fish-finding and communication equipment — and a 2500m3 refrigerated fish room that can hold 1400 tonnes of frozen products of herring, blue whiting or mackerel.

Under the heading “Let’s slay the Green Monster — to restore fishing’s reputation” journalist Quentin Bates writes in the April 2009 issue of the monthly Fishing News International: “Faroese writer Búi Tyril, who is co-author of Maria Olsen’s book Images of Fishermen… is a man with fishing in his blood, who has chosen to examine the possibilities a publicity campaign by the fishing industry could have as part of his master’s degree in corporate communication and public affairs at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University, Scotland.”

The FNI article goes on: “Búi Tyril’s report, while written primarily as a university assignment, doesn’t pull its punches. It identifies reasons for the fishing industry’s terrible public image as well as many of those responsible for it.”

The full title of the report is “Meet the Green Monster: How the fishing industry could employ public relations principles and techniques to combat a global threat posed by powerful pressure groups.”

The FNI article quotes from the introduction of the report: “A vicious cycle of bad media coverage, unfavorable public policies, negative advocacy from pressure groups, and consequential damaged reputation has, with growing momentum, conspired to undermine the vital interests of the industry.”

The report, which can be downloaded at www.BuiTyril.com, includes an outline of how the fishing industry could create a common communication platform to restore trust and enhance its public image.

I just remember, when I looked through my archives, skipper and part owner Bogi Rasmussen once took a photo of me when I had just boarded the old Nordborg from a raft after some days on board the trawler/purse seiner Christian í Grótinum. What still strikes me is the memory of that amazing night – I’ll never forget the beautiful stillness in the foggy atmosphere mixed with the reflection of the lights from the two ships.

I was totally surrounded by the water which softly shaped small silver waves with fulmars riding on them looking for food. If I were to reach out my hand I could easily touch them. Bogi would ask me, “Where do you want to photograph? I can take you all the way from southwest off Iceland to the Faroes, if you like…”

See some of the photos I took that night in the chapter “Pelagic Pair Trawling for Herring with Christian í Grótinum and Norðborg” in the book Images of Fishermen: The North Atlantic.

Earlier this autumn a fisheries conference was held at the Sjöhistoriska Maritime Museum in Stockholm in connection with my photo exhibition “Ocean Fishing — Six Trips on the North Atlantic”. The central theme of the conference dealt with how to develop sustainable fisheries management in the Nordic countries and among the invited speakers were Ásmundur Guðjónsson, representative from the Nordic Council in Copenhagen, stated in his presentation that there is no common management policy in the Nordic countries — but 8 different ones.

Some of the other invited speakers was Hjalti í Jákupstovu from the Faroese Fisheries Laboratory, Jan Pieter Groenhof, senior adviser for Norway’s Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, and Mogens Schou, head of the development for fishereries and aquaculture at the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries in Denmark. Issues of discussion that came up later in the afternoon included Icelandic adviser Pétur Bjarnason’s critique of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and their references to alleged overfishing, which according to Bjarnason, are grossly exaggerated in their statistics. Røgnvaldur Hannesson, professor of fishery economics, Bergen, Norway, pointed to natural fluctuations in the past which show that overfishing was a relatively small problem in the long run.

When Carolina Blaad, the press contact at the Sjöhistoriska Maritime Museum did an interview with me (in Swedish), she asked me to describe how it was to be on board the boats. Well, I answered:

“I wanted to see how it was for the fishermen to work and live on a fishing boat. I found it fascinating, like a hidden world — unknown by us living on land. But after being with them for a while, the thought struck me that they really love what they are doing and can hardly be without it even if conditions are very tough for many of them and often involves a lot of hard work…”

AUDIO: Click here to hear Carolina Blaad’s interview…

SLIDE SHOW: Click here to view photos…

I continued: “The first thing I discovered, especially on the smaller boats, was the fact that the boats were rocking in the waves, which effected my effort to keep my balance during photo compositions. Another thing was all the water drops splashing onto my lens, mainly from the fish itself, as the fishermen were gaffing the fish in or gutting it after having brought it on board.”

Question: Any special photograph out of the 30-piece collection of this exhibition that you favor more than others? Can you describe what we are seeing?

“Yes, I have one favorite… Here we can see a crewman involved in shooting the trawl from the Nanoq Trawl off the west coast of Greenland. I think it is a very aesthetic photograph and you can easily get a sense of how much work it takes to prepare these huge trawl nets with all the wires, chains and hooks etc for hauling in or shooting out the trawl. The sharp sunlight increases the effect of the yellowish green color of the trawl net, which adds to the composition of this scene with a man in silhouette.”

Question: How does it feel having this exhibition in the Sjöhistoriska Maritime Museum?

“It feels great… I am very happy for the interest people have been showing. I am also proud and it’s a pleasure to see my photos on these walls. It’s indeed a different medium than a book.

“Hopefully this exhibition will raise people’s awareness of the hard work behind every catch of fish, and help them understand some of the cultural and economic aspects affecting fishing communities in the North Atlantic.”

AUDIO: Click here to hear Carolina Blaad’s interview…

SLIDE SHOW: Click on one of the thumbnail images below to view photos.

I promised Búi, my husband, to show his photos mixed with my own shots on this blog from a fishing trip we did this summer in the Faroe Islands. I was quite impressed with some of the photos that he got even if he became a little seasick (he forgot to take the pill and it was ages since he’d been out at sea in a fishing boat) and got a lot of water drops on the lens…

So me and Búi did one trip each with the Áargarður, a combined coastal longliner and jigger registered in the fishing village of Leirvík. The boat is operated and partly owned by Anker Dýrdarklett Hansen, a longtime professional fisherman with particular experience in inshore fishing.

SLIDE SHOW: Click here to view photos…

The best coastal fishing is during fall, winter, and spring – fishing in the summer hardly pays as the fish is evasive and hard to find during those long days from May through July. Still, it can be a pleasant experience and it’s popular as an opportunity to bring family, friends or tourists out to sea. That’s exactly what Anker did: brought his Swedish wife Ann-Kristin “Anki” with him on both of these trips.

Búi first went with them to the north of the islands and the fishing turned out to be good considering the time of the year: some 800 pounds of haddock, with cod, whiting and a couple of other species mixed in. Unfortunately, most of the action took place during the two-three dark hours i.e. between 1 and 3 A.M. – not the best conditions for taking pictures. And if you’re seasick at the same time, well… But hey! somehow Búi managed to get several good photos, some of which were night shots.

Next, I took a trip with our friends, and thank God I did NOT forget to take the seasickness pill! The thing is, with these small day boats, as soon as you reach the open ocean, even if the weather is perfect, they will rock, heave and roll. For those who do this for a living, this is no doubt a rough lifestyle. This time we went further east and south but, alas, we didn’t catch much. On the other hand, the lighting conditions were great.

SLIDE SHOW: Click on one of the thumbnail images below to view photos.