The Salmon of Doubt

The Salmon of Doubt

I'm sure the late Douglas Adams won't mind if I borrow his book title, but the image is perfect for it in more ways than one. Firstly of course there's the salmon, and we bought it at Morrisons, all sealed up nicely but complete with head. I'm a big fan of those Victorian zoological and botanical images in black and white and, whatever sensibilities we might have about the way that the animals in particular were dealt with, we are left with a heritage and insight into the Victorian mind. So my first doubt was really whether we wanted to look at an image of a dead salmon. I thought about this for a while and the photographer in me rationalised that any subject was really an important record, even of uncomfortable subjects, otherwise we would never know any truths.

So having established that I would make a record shot, the next question was in what setting, so I chose to present it within the confines of a silver tray. What attracted me to this tray was the pattern and how it seemed to blend with the salmon. Clearly an image would be black and white, but I also tried an intense sepia, which is actually a tungsten balance colour shot, and colour. I quite like them all really, so here they are for your consideration.

Full colour



"Sepia"



Monochrome, shot in-camera as monochrome



The salmon continued onwards into our freezer, but the head was transformed into some quite delicious salmon pate.