Corey Arnold Photography at the Ocean Institute

image and info courtesy of the Ocean Institute

Photographer and fisherman Corey Arnold continues to keep busy with both of his fulltime careers.  Although we haven’t been able to keep with him and the rest of the crew of the F/V Rollo for the last couple of seasons, they’re definitely out there hauling in King and Opilio crab.  The great thing about Corey Arnold though, is that we can certainly keep up with his other work through his own site and other websites such as the Oceanic Institute’s post below…

 

 

Corey Arnold

September 18th, 2008 – The Ocean Institute proudly announces the third Artist by the Sea lecture to be held at the Ocean Institute’s Samueli Center.

Join us Thursday, September 18th at 7pm for a fun and illuminating evening with a worldwide recognized photographer and “Deadliest Catch” documentary veteran.

Corey Arnold is a photographer recognized worldwide for his iconic pictures of crab fishing in Alaska. He is also a crab fisherman himself, and has worked seasonally as a deckhand in Alaska since 1995. You may have seen him working aboard the F/V Rollo on Discovery Channel’s hit documentary series “Deadliest Catch”. He has also spent many years in Norway documenting the fishermen and whalers of the Barents Sea. A young photographer, at age 32 Corey has quickly made a name for himself in the contemporary photography world. His work has been shown in leading galleries in Los Angeles and New York City and featured in The New Yorker, Outside Magazine, Fortune, Juxtapoz, Rolling Stone and major promotional campaigns for the Discovery Channel.

Click here to listen to a narrated slide
show on NPR.

More information from the Ocean Insitute after the jump

News about Photographer/Fisherman Corey Arnold

Every once in a while we have to post a few pics taken by Corey Arnold–professional photographer and deckhand aboard the F/V Rollo.  Corey continues to stay extremely busy with both professions and he recently posted new images on his flickr account which is viewable by the public!  You’ll have to check them out!  Corey Arnold also has a brand new website coming together which includes his work, projects, and his own blog.  Recently he was interviewed and you can listen to it as you watch a photo slideshow of his work. (All images are courtesy of Corey Arnold)

Corey Arnold of the F/V Rollo Photographs ad campaign for season 4 of “Deadliest Catch”

Considering how attached “Deadliest Catch” fans become to their favorite fishing vessels and fishermen, one would think that eventually Discovery would put together a “Deadliest Catch” special where we could revisit crews from previous seasons and catch up on what they’re currently doing.  Wouldn’t that be a treat?

Keeping up with the F/V Rollo however, is a little bit easier then some of the other crews and vessels, thanks to Corey Arnold and his growing photography career.  As we speak (so to say), Corey should have just wrapped up an assignment in the Swiss Alps for a magazine. 

(Photo courtesy of Corey Arnold)

According to his website, the larger then life “Deadliest Catch” images that New Yorkers will be feasting their eyes on shortly that are part of Discovery’s season 4 ad campaign, were taken by none other then himself!  Hopefully those will make their way to the internet so that we may all enjoy them! For now, we can still view some of his photos on his website and on flickr as well.

Recently Corey was interviewed by Pingmag, where he shared details on his fishing and photography careers, his travels, and more of his beautiful pictures…

Corey Arnold: Adventures On The High Seas

First, of all possible jobs, how did you end up having a summer job on a fisherman’s boat? What was the thrill, or was it something like “The Old Man and the Sea…?”

Corey:  It all started with my personality as a kid: I was crazy about exploring, travelling, and hanging out with animals. Well, killing and dissecting animals like birds, rabbits, squirrels, lizards, and especially sea creatures. I wanted to know how everything in the world looked on the inside and out, I was a curious and brutal little feller. Meanwhile my dad was a sport fishing addict. We would go fishing in the waters off of California nearly every weekend and I’d be surfing during the days in between. So in a way, I grew up on the sea.
After my first year of college in 1995, I drove to Alaska in search of a summer job. I’d always heard about the opportunities for fast money in the Alaskan fishing industry, so I set out to find out for myself. It wasn’t as if I went there just for the money, but the idea of making good money and doing something I love sounded too good to be true… And I quickly landed a job as a salmon fisherman: I think I made about $1,500 in six weeks. In retrospect, it wasn’t much money but I was getting paid for the biggest adventure of my life!

Getting in touch with weird looking sea creatures, during crab fishing on the Bering Sea. © Corey Arnold

And why are you still so drawn to it for all these years?

Corey:  I came back every summer for five years to salmon fish while I was going to college. Afterwards, I took a few years off to work as a photo assistant in San Francisco. It was quite brutal to get started there with little cash, so I decided to take off again for Alaska. This time, I set out for a riskier job that was more lucrative, and at the same time, something that I’d like to work on as a photography project. Then in 2002, I began working in the Bering Sea aboard the crab fishing boat “Rollo.”
It took a lot of time to gain the respect of the other fisherman and work my way into the position I have now.

Also on the Bering Sea: “There is this feeling of accomplishment after surviving every 20-hour work day in huge seas,” says Corey. © Corey Arnold

Read the entire interview at Pingmag

Another photo exhibit for Corey Arnold

From Deadliest Catch, season 2, Corey Arnold of the F/V Rollo has another photo exhibit taking place this week. His images are often mesmerizing with their contrasts between light and dark. He currently is showing a series of photos titled “Arcticness” on the online gallery of the Humble Arts Foundation.

Currently based in Portland, Oregon, Corey Arnold is both commerical fisherman and artist photographer. His plans this fall are to fish King crab in the Bering sea aboard the F/V Rollo where he will no doubt catch crab, take more pictures, do cartwheels on deck, and create memorable memories for both himself and crew. You can learn and see plenty more of Corey’s work on his own website. (Photos all courtesy of Corey Arnold)

The Humble Arts website has a very interesting interview of Corey. You can learn much about him there.

How To Be An Alaskan Fisherman by Corey Arnold

05/13/07  Although the F/V Rollo isn’t featured in Deadliest Catch season 3, her crew remains the favorite of plenty of fans. One of the deckhands–Corey Arnold–is probably more known for his striking photography then his appearance on Deadliest Catch, season 2.  He’s written a very creative article about his story of how he became a Bering sea crab fisherman and he also shares his advice to anyone interested in pursuing the same line of work.  The article appears in Fecalface.com, a wildly entertaining site with awesome articles galore plus so much more!  If you have yet to peruse through Corey Arnold’s online gallery…Hurry Up!  Do it now!  You can also visit the Rollo’s website.  Corey Arnold has his own exhibition soon at the Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.

By Corey Arnold

I’ve gotten a lot of mails in recent years from young adventurers, enthusiastic Deadliest Catch fans, and desperately broke people wanting to find a job on a fishing boat in Alaska. I’m happy to share a few secrets here and clear up some common misconceptions. I’ll set this informative story to the tune of some recent snapshots from the 4 months I’ve spent working in Alaska since October… but I’ll also throw in some from the “old days” when it all began. How does this apply to fecal face dot com you might be thinking? I’m not sure exactly. Most of the kids that have emailed me about jobs in Alaska are from small midwest towns and litter their myspace pages with pictures of nascar heros, guns, confederate flags and hot chicks laying in sand. Do any fecal readers own guns or watch motorsports? Well, maybe this is just another “you can do anything if you set your mind to it” story. You can apply these job finding techniques to dozens of other torturous jobs in the world that will bring you to incredible destinations while making decent money to pay off school debt. How about coal mining in Svalbard? or working on Oil Platforms in the North Sea?This is the story of how I got started.

Me and a buddy decided we’d drive the Alaska highway from my hometown in Vista, California one summer in search of jobs in Alaska. We chose Homer (the halibut capital of the world) as our premier destination. I really didn’t know if this was the right town to start in and we didn’t do much research on what time of year is best to get a salmon job in that region of Alaska.

We had no connections to help us on our way, so we started walking the docks and talking to people. You just have to meet folks in person and be in the right place at the right time. I found it quite intimidating at first. These guys were the real deal… tough lifer fishermen. They mostly weren’t interested in small talk. Many just gave us dirty looks and shook their heads no. I felt like a beggar and got no respect.

After a few days of exploring and walking the same docks over and over again, it became obvious that Homer was not thehappening place for work in late May. Homer was a big halibut fishing town, but the season wasn’t on and everyone seemed to have regular crews.

On day three, we met a crab boat captain. He was a happy big bearded dude with oil permanently outlining his fingerprints. He ran a boat called the Norquest that docked in Homer for the summer. They wouldn’t fish for a couple months, but he hired us for $7 an hour to do some shipyard work. We grinded out and repainted the crab tanks and mast. The work was toxic but we were eager and didn’t complain. I coughed up rust for days after and lost millions of brain cells from painting a super toxic marine paint without a ventilator. We spent two weeks of shipyard work on the Norquest and asked a lot of questions about the industry. Afterwards, the skipper was impressed with our dedication and offered us both jobs as deckhands.

Looking back, it’s not so surprising that this particular boat had jobs for us. It was a rusty creature of a boat. The electronics were all out of date, the cranes were primitive, the layout was inefficient. It was small and old, a dangerous boat. Only the desperate or inexperienced would subject themselves to the Bering Sea in such a boat.

Luckily we turned down the job. We would have had to put in months of tendering (delivering salmon for canneries) and at least a month of cod fishing for free before we could work the coveted red king crab season where we were told you could make about $15,000 in a few weeks. By then the summer would be over and I was going back to college in September in Arizona of all places.

Shortly after our painting job on the Norquest, a guy named Larry contacted me after spotting a note I tacked to a bulletin board offering myself as a deckhand. He ran a set gillnet operation for Sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay and his deckhand had flaked at the last minute. We met that same day. He gave me a good look up and down and asked if I got seasick, did any drugs, am I willing to work harder then my body will allow. I said no, no and yes and I was on the first flight in the morning to a remote beach near the Kvichak River.

It was my favorite fishing experience ever. Summertime in Alaska pulling full nets of salmon over the rail by hand. We lived in primitive shacks on a sparcely populated beach. On the days off, I’d explore the tundra on a 3 wheeler with a .44 Magnum strapped to my side for bear protection.

I could go on an on about salmon fishing. I did it for 5 years. Unfortunately, I never really made any money. Maybe a couple thousand in 6 weeks at the most, but at least it was an adventure. The big money talk about commercial fishing is an illusion. There are ways to make a good living if you are in it for the long haul. You can’t expect to show up for a season, find a job and go home with a fistful of cash. You have to take major sacrifices in the beginning. A guy with no experience should be willing to work for free or partial share. They should do anything it takes to gain the knowledge so that you can “fake” your way onto better paying boats.

Having experience as a commercial salmon fisherman was helpful when looking for a higher risk, higher paid job. But there is a reason the career fishermen call the summertime fishermen from the lower 48 “salmon fags”. It just doesn’t approach the level of mundane drudgery that other fisheries in the icy waters of Alaska can dish out.

When I graduated from art school in SF earlier this decade, I decided to search for a fishing job that would help me out of debt. At the same time, I could fully engulf myself in my life project… photographing the modern fisherman.

I began the search this time in Seattle. It was as simple as posting a note on the bulletin board at fisherman’s terminal: “Strong, responsible, experienced deckhand seeking work”. I listed my references as a salmon fisherman for five years. Then i started walking the docks. This is really the only way to get a job if you have no connections. Just start talking to people. Offer to help them work on the gear for free. No resume is needed.

I was first offered a job by a guy named Cowboy. He was the skipper of a blackcod longliner headed out the next day for the Bering Sea. He was a crazy looking dude… All shaggy and crusty, but super nice. His boat looked like shit. He needed a half share deckhand/cook. I really didn’t want to cook so I told him I’d think about it and come back tomorrow.

Tomorrow was too late and the position was already filled. It had been over two weeks and this was my only offer and I blew it.

The next offer was a guy that drove out from Westport Washington just to find a deckhand in Seattle. I took the job and spent a week in Westport preparing to fish halibut for 4 months aboard the Ocean Challenger. Perhaps it was luck for me that I quit before we even left port. I had a bad feeling about the boat and was certain that I would get swindled out of fair pay.

Last October the Ocean Challenger rolled over in heavy seas and killed all but one of its crew. You might have witnessed the dramatic rescue of the only survivor caught on Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch last month. Even weirder, Cowboy, the super cool captain that offered me the other blackcod job, perished as the captain of the Ocean Challenger.

Eventually, after a whole depressing rainy March in Seattle, I recieved a phone call from Eric Nyhammer. He saw my note on the bulletin board and offered me a job jigging for cod in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea aboard the 43 foot f/v Two Bears. He also mentioned something on the phone about owning a scallop boat, salmon boat, and skippering a beautiful crab boat called the Rollo. I took the job and he flew me out to a remote village on the Alaska Penninsula.

Eric was a fantastic skipper, a tough and creative cross breed. It was fun, I saw the biggest waves of my life, drank lots of booze in a town called King Cove, and only made $2500 after two months of hard labor.

He thought I worked hard, I stuck it out to the end even though we weren’t making any money. So one tipsy night after drinking at Carl’s he offered me a job on the Rollo as a full share crabber.

The full share part didn’t pan out when we were sober, but I got the job. These are pictures of Matt (by the way).

I like crab fishing sometimes but most often I feel like jumping over the side. I told myself i’d quit after two years and move on to the next fishery but now it’s been 5 years. Maybe I’m just addicted to the scenery.

We come across some odd creatures.

Here is a nice whale carcass.

here is an Opilio Crab (not so weird)

Here is a red gilled scorpion cobra viper sculpin.

Here is another Opilio Crab

Here is a homeless Bairdi crab with genital barnicles. He was very much alive as a blind quadruple amputee. Some sort of sea sponge type thing has decided to be his hat. We see lots of these little french hats out there. I always giggle.

Last King Crab I salvaged a nice kitty from the pound hours before we left Seattle. She prostituted herself to all 5 of us and bounced from bunk to bunk on a weekly basis.

She would run out on the deck during the fiercest storms and attack injured seabirds.

She enjoyed eating king crab on a daily basis. Her fur is soft.

Offloading was party time for Kitty. She lived on the edge.

I love her and she loves wide open.

In November after King Crab… me, Matt and Eric jumped back on the Two bears and did some long lining for halibut.

Matt was having a hard time not being at home with his new girlfriend.

There was about a two hour time lapse between when I shot the two previous pictures.

Kitty is always all up in our shit.

Halibut gonads can be a real blast.

Opilio season was sloppy but not this day.

Our sister ship, the Arctic Hunter ran aground and nearly sunk so we fished their quota. The season lasted from January 4 til March 15th. It was gruelling

Stuffing the tanks full of Opies.

I forgot to mention my lousy injury. I somehow managed to drop a bucket full of engine degreaser that ejected itself into my open eyeballs. I damn near blinded myself. This is me with full bug eyes doped up on Vicadin after medivac to Anchorage. It would’ve been way cooler to lose a pinky finger to a king crab claw but I don’t think that’s ever happened.

Well my story began as a how to and ends a blog. Hope you don’t mind. But wait, right here I’ll list just a few more tips to keep in the “How to” spirit.

1. If you live in San Francisco, well hot dog, there are lots of fishing jobs right under your noses. I lived there for 6 years and it never occurred to me that fishermans wharf houses a bunch of legit fishermen. There is an out of the way dock more over by Giradelli square that docks most of the boats. SF also has a big herring fishery in the bay during winter and a thriving salmon trolling industry. Go to the delievery plants in the wharf or Sausalito. Many of those guys also have boats in Alaska.

2. Get a Job in a processing plant. You will be paid shittily but they might fly you somewhere interesting where you can make your escape shortly after arrival. Here are some names of processors in Alaska: Trident Seafoods, Westward Seafoods, Icicle Seafoods, Peter Pan Seafoods, Norquest Seafoods, American Seafoods. Find their info online and call em up. They might put you on a trawler/ processor like the one below:

3. Go to Seattle in May and walk the docks. This is when boats gear up for salmon.

4. Go to Dutch Harbor anytime. There is always something going on. The plane ticket will cost you $800 one way. There is no escaping that. It’s far cheaper to fly to China then the Aleutians. Don’t expect to land a crab job. There are way too many experienced crabbers out of work these days. Last season, the place was swarming with wannabe crab fisherman because of Deadliest Catch. I didn’t hear of any landing good jobs. Most just milled around for months.

5. Don’t try to act overly tough. Skippers want to hire smart guys with endurance.

6. Don’t expect to make any money, just consider it an adventure and have fun.

I had a nice time sharing my story. Now I’m going to bed. Good night.

By the way, I’m having a solo exhibition at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica Opening Saturday May 12 from 5-7 and running until June 9th, hope to see you there!

New Online Magazine “MUMBLE” Interviews Corey Arnold of the Rollo

 It goes by the name of Mumble.   In it, Clive Noctchaw interviews Corey Arnold and we learn more about Corey, his thoughts on fishing, photography, and the big project he’s been working on:  FiskMagazine.

How old are you and where are you from?
I’m 30 and I grew up in the suburb of Vista, California.  I also lived in SF for 6 years and attended the Academy of Art college.
Where do you live now?
Oslo, Norway is my home.  I came here 4 years ago with my Norwegian ex-girlfriend.  Now I’m having a homebase crisis.  I love SF, Portland, and Oslo. I think I might settle into Portland for awhile.
How did the Deadliest Catch thing come about?
One of the assistant producers randomly picked me and Matt up hitchhiking in Dutch Harbor during the filming of Season 1.  We became friends, and she pitched the idea of using our boat for the second season of Deadliest Catch.  They filmed on our boat for king crab and came back for snow crab.  I’d say they spent about 4 weeks with us total and shot around 250 hours of footage!
What camera were these photos shot on?
I try to shoot medium format film as much as possible.  Almost all of these are shot with a Mamiya 645 on color neg film.  I wish I could sport a 4×5, but that would be impossible due to the weather.
When did you pick up your first camera?
I remember getting a lot of praise when I was very young for not cropping the heads off people when I took pictures.  That was the measure of a good photographer in my family.  At 12, my dad bought me a Pentax K1000. I felt grown up with such a fancy camera but I also thought photography was kind of nerdy at the time.  It wasn’t until college that I realized photography could take me on adventures I always dreamed about.
What’s your favorite camera?
My favorite camera hasn’t been created yet and probably never will be.  I would like a waterproof 4×5 SLR camera that shoots 4″x5″ roll film! For now I will have to settle for the biggest negative possible in an SLR camera.  I’m about to buy a Pentax 6×7 II.  I want to make giant prints!
How long do you think you’ll keep fishing for?
Commercial fishing will always be part of my life.  However, crabbing is not a profession to grow old in. The future looks bleak for those trying to work their way up the ladder.  One must be a multimillionaire to aquire a boat and crab quota due to the new rationalized system which transfers ownership of the resource to the processors and boat owners.  I may get back into set-gillnetting for salmon in Bristol Bay.  Working from a small aluminum skiff and pulling nets loaded with salmon by hand over the side is heaven but maybe not as rock n’ roll as crab fishing.  I also might buy halibut quota.  Funny that you can own a small percentage of a natural resource… forever!
Any aspirations of becoming a captain?
I have no aspirations of being a crab boat captain. What I love about fishing is being outside on deck, feeling the salt spray, playing with seagulls, and the physicalness of the work.  Even though a captain makes about 2.5 times more money, the responsibility can be very stressful.  I already spend too much of my life indoors… e-mailing and retouching images in the off season. 
Do you own any type of boat?
Not now.  I’ve been too transient lately. I will likely someday own my own commercial salmon boat.  If not in Alaska, maybe even SF Bay.
When’s your fishing magazine coming out?
FISK Magazine is trying to come out this fall but we are still pulling together resources, sponsors, and other funds to make it happen.  We are a team of 5 guys that share responsiblities and each has their specialty.  Officially, I’m the photo editor.  But I’m also the Senior photographer, co-editor, and columnist.

RELATED LINKS:
CoreyFishes.com
RolloCrab.com
FiskMagazine.com