You may have noticed that I shoot a few photos of myself fishing these days - apologies for this, but there are reasons for doing so!

Way back when I started writing and photographing features for Sea Angler magazine, I would deliberately submit no photographs of myself with the words I sent in. From time to time the editor would ask me to take photos of myself but I always made an excuse and declined, mainly because I didn’t want to be the focal point of the articles I was writing. I wanted other anglers who I fished with to be the visual side of the words, and that reluctance has stuck with me for a long time……………

A rod which I will end up reviewing, I didn’t want to hassle the bloke I was fishing with so I quickly shot a few photos of me fishing with it

Another reason is also because I am a complete and utter photo snob, and to shoot half-decent photographs of yourself is not easy at all. Nearly every single time I have tried getting somebody else to use my camera gear to shoot photos of me was a disaster, so I very deliberately would remain behind the camera and shoot other people. Asking somebody who doesn’t know cameras to hold and focus on something very specific (the eye of a fish for example), and compose a shot whilst also factoring in the correct exposure and so on is impossible. For all the many fishing photos I see all over the place now thanks to mobile photography, I don’t see a lot that grabs my attention and draws my eye in. It has never been easier to take photos, but I would politely suggest that it hasn’t made people better photographers. Ouch!

Another lure rod I will end up reviewing and which will be coming back to Portugal with me in a few weeks

But the advent of digital photography has of course made it a lot easier to take more risks, get instant feedback, and not worry about shooting a bit of crap and then getting rid of it. I remember shooting a couple of chapters for a book and getting stuck on Vancouver Island many years ago with 9/11, when I was still shooting 35mm transparency film. I think we had to stay an extra four days before we could find a way back to the UK - my journey home took 60 hours door to door - and from memory I would have travelled with forty rolls of 36 exposure Fuji Provia 100F transparency/slide film. When you’re done you’re done, not like with digital of course. We got stuck out there so of course we carried on fishing, and I had to be very careful with what I carried on shooting because I only had a couple of rolls of film left.

Very occasionally when I have set up to shoot some photos of me fishing, a fish turns up!

Whereas now you are not limited like that at all, but I would still stubbornly refuse all pleas to shoot a few photos of myself for magazine articles. I started this blog many years ago now and if you went right back I reckon you would see no photos of me on here. I can obviously do what I want on here, but I like being the photographer who can control what they shoot. It’s what really drives me and I am not remotely somebody who wants to get his face out there for anything vanity related. I have virtually no photos of myself in my (massive) photo library with any of the fish I have caught around the world, and I know this has bothered a few people when I post shots of anglers holding a fish I might have caught myself. It has never bothered me though. I can control the shots and shoot what I want to shoot, rather than have a non-photographer miss the focus and mess the composition up and so on. Yep, I am a photo snob as I said earlier.

A good example - I am the only one of my fishing mates who wears sun protection gear like this, so if I want to talk about on this blog I want to have photos of it in use. Which is me.

But there is something very specific that I have always stuck to on this blog which you probably don’t even know about. Whenever I put a review up of a specific bit of fishing tackle - especially lure rods - you are only going to see photographs of the specific item(s) being used. I know this might sound a bit stupid when a lot of the time you probably couldn’t tell if the angler was fishing with the specific rod especially that I was reviewing - but it means something to me that I know the item or items of fishing tackle I am reviewing are actually appearing in the photos.

When the light is this good and I am fishing on my own I simply can’t forgive myself for not trying to photograph something!

Which in turn means that I have almost had no choice but to get into taking photographs of myself when I am fishing, and especially because I fish on my own a bit more these days. If I am using an item of fishing tackle which I end up reviewing, I want to make sure that I end up with a bunch of photos of the item or items being used in the real world. I don’t have to do this but I feel like it’s being honest and upfront, and I believe it’s the right thing to do. It’s not easy at all to shoot “proper” photographs of yourself fishing, but via a lot of trial and error I have worked out a few methods which can work well in certain situations. A lot of shots get binned but enough are pin-sharp and properly exposed, and because I keyword every single photo I end up storing in my image library - keywording is a way of adding information to a photo/digital file so you can do a word-search for it in your library - I can then pick out shots of a specific rod, reel, braid, lure or clothing and so on being used. I can do a search in the Photo Mechanic software which might say “Keywords Henry Gilbey Fishing Action Penn Conflict Elite 9’ 38g Berkley Sick braid Penn Authority 2500 Savage Gear SG8 waders”, and any photos I have catalogued in which I am using all those items in the same shots will appear. If I put something up on my Facebook page I also want any gear that I am talking about to be truthfully represented in the photos.

Some kind friends will often fish with an item of fishing tackle if I ask them to so that I can get some shots, but I don’t want to hassle them all the time when they are fishing, and as I said I am often fishing on my own and I won’t get shots of some gear being used unless I shoot myself. I also sometimes want shots of somebody fishing a specific type of ground or sea condition and so on, and if I am on my own then it’s me who is going to appear in the photo if I can easily set it up. I always make sure to note down what gear the anglers I am fishing with are using so I can keyword that into my image library as well. There is a side of me which will always be a bit embarrassed about putting photos of me up in the public domain, but these are my reasons and I am pretty confident that most of you will understand and forgive the shots of me fishing away! You all have a good weekend…………