5th place for my photo “Trash fish for lunch?”

I am so happy that my photo “Trash fish for lunch?” finished in the 5th place, and got a Merit Award, in the Swedish Championship of Photography (SM i Fotografi) in the documentary category. I never expected that. I was just happy that it qualified for the finals. 

While working as a Test Manager in Bengaluru, India, for six months, in 2019-20 I tried to travel on the weekends as much as possible so that I got a better understanding of the country and its people. 

One of these little trips took me to Mangalore on a bus that was named Corona. I thought that this was a funny coincidence as this was at the beginning of Covid-19 or Corona, pandemic. I wasn't sure if I would get the virus from the bus or if the bus was the cure for the virus.

I spent the first day at the Mangalore Port walking up and down the docks where the ships and smaller boats offloaded their fishes and male and female day workers sorted them into different piles. The better fish were exported, others sold on the local fish market and the scrap fish sold to factories that turned them into pellets or pet feed.

While talking and photographing I saw a man sitting and fishing by the water next to the boats. I showed my camera to him and nodded my head and he looked at me for a second until he went back to angling again. 

I walked a bit closer and started to take some photos, stopped and asked him:

“What are you doing?” 

“Fishing” he said, turning his head towards me.

“Do you catch any fish or just plastics?” I asked him while photographing.

“Yes, I got some small fish in the plastic bags but a lot of bottles and many plastics in water” he said while pointing at the bags next to him.

I mumbled “What will you do with the fish?” behind the camera.

He said, with a smile on his face “Make the best fish curry in Mangalore.”

I laughed and said “That must be a pretty good curry as Mangalore is famous for fish curries.”

I stayed for another 10 minutes or so chatting with him and ended by chimping for a good photo that I showed him on the back of my camera. He looked at it and said “Good, very good.”