I love fish markets and am drawn to them like an iron filing to a magnet. This one is in Puerto Princesa in Palawan, Philippines, where I spent a week in October. The whole of the Public Market in downtown Puerto Princesa is magic. It’s old and sprawling and people complain that it’s suffering from serious logistical problems due to the market now being bigger than the original infrastructure was designed for.
I work in fishery management and have long been fascinated by the Philippines. Because it’s a densely populated country its fisheries have been under heavy pressure for a long time which means landings have become more dominated by ‘weed’ species – small, schooling, fast-growing, short-lived, plankton-eating fish like sardines, scads and small mackerel. The stuff that’s still around after all the big fish are gone. Because my usual stomping ground is the much less heavily fished Western Pacific, I wanted to see for myself how all that fishing pressure manifested in the offerings at a local market.
I pretty much saw what I expected (centre frame). An interesting side note is that as I pressed the shutter the lady on the right walked into my frame. She was moving pretty quickly, so at the time I wasn’t sure where exactly she would end up in the picture. In the end I think she enhances the shot.
The camera I used was a Mamiya-6 Automat (circa 1955) loaded with Kodak Tri-X that I was shooting at 800. Development was with XT-3 1+3. I also shot some Kodak T-max 400 (also at 800) on the same trip, including at the fish market. Both worked well.
Share this post:
Comments
Steve Harper on Fish market – my photo of the year 2025
Comment posted: 19/12/2025