Fish Snuf M*vie
Topic: LondonLifer
So I went to Whitstable, with Rose Madder, on Monday, and took my camera because I wanted to photograph dead fish. It was raining like a blood shower in a slashpic, and the cold gradually froze me over until I couldn't feel anything at all, and got giddy. My brain froze over the worst.
Rose Madder used to be a photographer of sorts, and I hoped I could pick her brain for ideas, although my main idea was to go to the fishermen's market stalls on the wharf where they sell the fresh catch, and photograph series of dead fish. Rose Madder's advice was to be brash, stick your camera in people's face when it's the right moment, and shoot, without worrying about etiquette or permission. She said they let go of the scruff of your neck eventually.
I couldn't do it - I got one snap of some cockles and mussels and chickened out. I resolved to take a series of pictures of fish that had died of natural causes, instead.
Meantime, the rain was barrelling down, and we ducked into a harbour pub to shelter, and eat oysters. In May. Wrong month to eat oysters (yeah, now you tell me that, old woman at work, now you tell me).
Feeling nauseated, queasy, bilious, tipping slightly to the left on bends, feeling rather at sea, I try to walk it off along the beach. The tide is out and I want to jump the scum on the waves, and see if I can get further out into the harbour than anyone else, so I can be King of the Beach. I want to skim a stone that goes further than three hops. And I want to find me a dead crab, a fish if possible; failing that, 700 digital close ups of seaweed bunches will do.
First beach I got to, I could not believe my luck. I found a wild fish, about two foot long, a handspan in diameter, died of natural causes. I snapped away like a paparazzi finding Becks' bidet occupied. Brilliant. I found a salmon!
I did mention the cold was freezing my brain over, didn't I? A salmon. Wild. Yeah. On the beach. There were other varieties, too. Plaice, Giant Crabs, Dover Sole, Lobsters. Died of natural causes. No embarrassment in photographing this lot in close up for hours.
I found three salmon, actually. I was lining em up to snap 'em and p'raps even pretend I'd been on a trawler and brought up the nets myself, when I saw one of them was wearing a barcode label.
It even took me a while longer to work out what creature had filleted all the flatfish so neatly.
Or to look further up the estuary towards the back doors of all the Oyster restaurants lining the flood barriers.
Doh.
In other news, Vanessa learns that eating bad oysters can be compounded if all subsequent meals mainly consist of chilli, tabasco, beans, and boiled eggs.
I am not pleasant company in any small, airless space right now.
Updated: Thursday, 6 May 2004 10:22 PM BST
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