Stilt Fishermen of Sri Lanka

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It is very difficult to explain, to adequately describe, just what an amazing tradition stilt fishing in Sri Lanka is. To be honest, I cannot think of any amount of scepticism or cynicism regarding its recent commercialisation, the rise of tourist touts targeting the tour buses and their hapless fares and even the few fishermen themselves who are slowly taking advantage of the rise of tourism, which can detract from the reality and beauty of it all.

But, let me start from the beginning.I too read all about the stilt fishermen of southern Sri Lanka and I too had seen the famous Steve McCurry shot. I read about the tradition, how it started almost 300 years ago and how it has changed over the years. I read dozens or articles and two separate books about Sri Lanka and thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about this dying tradition and its people - or at least as much as someone doing research could ever know, right?. I’m not going to lie - the more I read, the more depressed I became about what I was about to witness.As I moved forward in time with my research, more and more articles spoke of how there were no "real" fishermen anymore, of how the recent tsunami had all but wiped out this entire industry, leaving only tourist traps and so on. By the end of my research phase I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would be very lucky if I came across about a dozen of them scattered across the entire south, with most of them being fake ones and, to be brutally honest, that I would have to count on paying between £20 and £60 to photograph them. Still, there was no denying that the pictures I could expect could be amazing, so budget was calculated and set aside.Oh, just to be perfectly clear, I did try to reach out to local photographers in hopes I would find someone willing to be my local contact and/or fixer while I would be in Sri Lanka, but out of more than a dozen contacts, emails to various local photography associations and even individual photographers, I did not hear back from anyone - but let’s chalk that to bad luck and assume - no, hope - that other people would fare much, much better. But, more on this later - I have good news for you reader!

And then, the actual trip came and, after an almost 20 hour journey (including planes, taxis and driving), I arrived in Weligama, my home for the next few days as I would venture forth and explore the southern coast and, hopefully, experience this tradition.Anxious as I was, the first thing I tried to do (and this came from experience from over 30 similar trips) was find a local, someone from the hotel, who knew of some fishermen and could get me in contact. Maybe it was the place I stayed of, again, just my luck, but the two people who seemed to know what I was talking about seemed fully intent to only show me the tourist sights and nothing more. So, I gave up this approach, jumped into my rental and started driving up and down along the coast, literally looking around for fishing stilts - pretty desperate, no?

Well, within a few miles from the hotel I came across the first grouping and, of course, I jumped out and walked to the beach only to be, immediately, approached by a young man claiming to be able to organise a group of fishermen for me to see the next morning, just before dawn. It sounded too good to be true but, strangely enough, it turned out that it wasn't. He did indeed know an elderly fisherman and he, in turn, knew two others who, for a "modest" fee, would be willing to show the visitor how they fished on stilts IF I could come by the next morning just before sunrise. Here I have to say that I'm almost certain that he said 4:30am because most tourists would never get out of bed at 4am, leave their buffet breakfast just to drive an take 5 photos...but I was not a tourist.Now, remember, this was what I had come to expect, so after a bit of bargaining, we settled at a price (enormously overpriced as I came to evaluate later on) and, all of a sudden, I knew I would get my first shot - pun intended - at witnessing the famous tradition. Now, don’t get me wrong - the location was good - loads of smooth sand, easy access for me to get really close to the action, a very nice background both looking towards the rising sun as well as towards the beach if I wanted to…all in all, it was really nice setting. Would the fishermen be the real thing? Most likely not. Would it make a difference in the images I would capture? Most likely not.

"Fisherman father" as the group would call him, was a kind, happy, intelligent and very capable man who, within minutes of fishing on a low stilt and in wavy waters, managed to catch two small fish!

It turned out that the location was not ideal, especially at dawn at this time of the year, as the tide was high and the currents created waves - not conducive to fishing!

Next morning, just around 4:30am, I got up and drove to the site, well before sunrise. My contact was there and, within 10’, a group of 3 fishermen - one of them a really impressive-looking older man - showed up and, on queue, got up on the stilts and started fishing. Now, you haven’t seen it, but the sight itself will, immediately, appear way too fake as they swing their poles, almost too rapidly to hold any chance of catching anything, but I’ll be damned if, within the first few minutes, one of them had not caught a small fish! Seriously!Now, for the next hour or so, I waded in and out of the water, switching lenses, shooting from far and close ups, moving against the rising sun and keeping it behind me and, well, to put it mildly, I shot just over 600 pictures, some of which ended up on the site, some you can see here and some will end up in the book. All in all I would definitely mark this as a photographic success, even though the experience itself was definitely a bit fake. Of course, on conclusion I got to meet the fishermen and, more specifically, what they called the “fisherman father”, the elderly gentleman who, as he explained (in extremely limited English) had been doing this - the actual fishing - for over 50 years and who still, believe it or not, lived in a small hut, right there, on the beach, made out of palm fronds! That was when I started to feel that maybe not everything in this whole experience was fake!Having finished, at just after 7am, I drove back to the hotel for breakfast and a swim, but before long (well, around 4 hours later) I was back in the car, driving further along the coast, trying to find alternative locations. This time I drove past a number of smaller coves, some with stilts, but nowhere did I come across any signs of life until I reached Ahangama. There, within the space of a couple of miles, I came across not one, but two separate locations, where not only where fishermen present, but seemed to be preparing for an actual day’s fishing. In fact, in both locations, I ended up following a fisherman as he waded out towards the stilts in order to find the area where he (and his friends) would be fishing.

Within the hour, I had made contact with Dilan (full details available on demand, so please message me) who, not only is a fisherman himself but also can act as a go-between to help tourists willing to go a bit out of their way, to see the real thing. With Dilan’s help I got to not only meet real fishermen and see them in action - I kid you not, one of them caught three 25lb barracuda within the space of a few minutes while every single other would come in and out of the water with 2-3 kgs of fish each, per time!Now, while with Dilan’s help I was able to photograph them from multiple angles and to my heart’s content, those were not tourist props! They were real fishermen who lived from their catch. They come out in the morning and - against popular belief, this is not was well before dawn, it is JUST before dawn, maybe 20' before the sun rises (and in Sri Lanka it rises extremely quickly), when the sardines (and other small fish) venture out from the shallows and the larger fish, like the barracuda, take advantage of that and come into the shallows to feed! (it all makes sense now, right?) - return 2 hours later with the morning catch (usually larger fish) which they sell to small vans driving back and forth along the coast picking up catches.They then retire until 4pm, when they venture out again to catch the smaller sardines on their return journey. And because sardines - according to them - cannot see well into the half-light, they don’t even need to use bait - the tiny hooks (which also serve as weights!) flash silvery enough to entice them and let me tell you, they bite! Just one of them came out, well before the sun actually set, with around 3-4 kgs of small fish! Imagine, that’s without bait and over the course of less than 1hr!

Over the next couple of days I spend quite a few hours with them and I learned a lot. I learned about how fishing was still their main source of income but when a tourist would venture out, the additional income would be of immense help to them. I learned that a capable fisherman (and, believe it or not, these are more and more the younger people (!!) can make around 15-20 USD a day from fishing if they're a bit lucky. And I learned that most fishermen can easily feed their families (and, sometimes, this means their entire extended family of over 20 people) through their daily catches.But still, this cannot be enough - nobody can live on fish alone! You see, fish is cheap, very cheap in Sri Lanka, so these fishermen, no matter how hard they work in their “chosen” profession, they will never make enough to live even adequately well. So they also do other things during the day - one of them also had a surf shack, another two shared a small souvenir shop and so on. Still, ALL of them together would not net them the $50 or $60 I paid them over the two days I was there and, let me tell you, it is realisations like this which make you think.

Let me explain:Stilt fishing is, still, a living tradition. Maybe it’s not as extensive as it once was, but there are still people really trying to make a living like this. And it’s a wonderful tradition - it’s a trace of a past, our past, of a time when people would each struggle to make their own way into the world, who would only use their own two hands for this and it is amazing to see it still going on today. These are real people and it’s a privilege for visitors like ourselves to be allowed a glimpse - however superficial and temporary - into their lives. And if people like me, who will make money out of those amazing images those people granted me access to, can help maintain it just that little bit longer, then yes, this is something worth doing. Yes, I fully understand that if more and more people keep on giving money - especially money which may not appear much to us but is a lot for them - they may eventually completely drop the fisherman life for that of a prop - this is indeed a risk and one I cannot claim to ignore or dismiss. But I think there is a balance to be struck here.If you simply show up, throw a bunch of dollars to someone like Dilan, snap a few shots and then leave, then you are exactly telling them that, to you, they are nothing more than props to be used, much like one would use a store dummy and as such, there is really no interest in their way of life and no point to them keeping it up. But what if you spend time with them? What if you really take an interest and make that interest the centre of the financial exchange? What if you spend time photographing their way of life rather than spend time setting up tripods and neutral density filters and so on and so forth? What if, rather than paying them off to pose for you, you reward them, you contribute to their way of life, exactly because they let you be part of it? Then what you’re telling them is that what they’re doing IS important and you - and people like you - value it and will continue to visit BECAUSE you value it. That way the tradition itself becomes valuable and is way more likely to continue…

For anyone who does not believe there are still real stilt fishermen in Sri Lanka, I took this long exposure shot as :evidence" that people still fish this way and quite successfully. You just need to put in the energy and time (and money) to find them. Just be aware that these people are not always happy to be photography subjects - be kind, be compassionate and always fair.

So please, go to Sri Lanka and do go out of your way to visit the fishermen. But please, spend time with them - it will be infinitely more rewarding than stopping for 10’ and grabbing a couple of shots with your iPhone. Oh, and if anyone wants additional information on locations, times and even Dilan's contact details, please let me know...!2021 Update:While I myself have not attempted to contact Dilan, a couple of photographers I shared his contact details with reported they had been unable to reach him. Now obviously I do not know what they wrote to him or how they approached him (or, for that matter, how quick Dilan responds to messages - I did everything face to face), so it may have been a fluke or he may have changed his number. A number of other photographers who I shared the location and other details with never came back to tell me how they did. What I would recommend to anyone wanting to photograph stilt fishermen is simple: put in the time and effort. Rent a car, wake up at 4am and drive along the coast, stopping everywhere you see an opening and checking. Ask people - stop at the dozens of fish market stalls along the road and ask them, ask at the restaurants. If I was able to do this, there's nothing stoping you - I guarantee you. But allow for time - this wont happen in a day, it simply won't. Allow 2-4 days to build up the contacts and get enough time with the fishermen.

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