A Shot In The Dark: Photographs by Newlyn’s Ring-net Crews

This August, three Newlyn skippers were given point and shoot cameras loaded with high speed black & white film.

Eight rolls of 35mm captured the perspectives of crews aboard Inter-Nos, Serene Dawn & Lyonesse as they hunted sardines in the days before the second Cornish Sardine Festival.

Immediate, unfiltered and raw, this exhibition shines a light on their experience of a night’s fishing in Mounts Bay.

Flash and analogue, contrast and grain, felt the best way to recreate some of the atmosphere of a ‘shot’ - when net flows, voices hush and minds concentrate; gulls swarm, engines idle, and vast shoals of sardine are drawn towards the surface and the boat in an explosion of iridescent scales.

Silent coordination, three or four bodies repeating the motions of one hundred times before. Stations taken. Years of experience stored in muscle memory.

And then, calm again.

Hushed voices in the wheelhouse, a crib table overflowing with biscuits, jokes and stories, crackling conversations held over high frequency. A mix of relevant comms and mundane chatter. Watching each other on radar. Following voices on the waves.

Light in the dark.

‘Well. If nothing materialises I think we’ll uh, ‘av another look tomorra’.

Poster photograph by Billy Pascoe
Photographs by crews of Inter Nos, Lyonesse & Serene Dawn
Exhibition concept by Rich Adams
Curation by Rich Adams & Issy Carreira
Film Processing & Scanning by Archie Robinson
Printing by Matt Martin / Toner