The Big Catch

• Prize
  Silver in Advertising/Travel/Tourism
• Photographer
  Sherwin Magsino
• Photo Date
  10/23/19

I can still remember that magical morning where I spied this fisherman cormorant fishing along the Li River in Guilin, China. It was a dance that I needed to capture. I learned that this traditional method goes back 1,300 years. Yet despite a slow resurgence, cormorant fishing is still, sadly, a dying art and banned in China as the decline in fish populations, has made the situation unsustainable. This ancient tradition is now predominantly practiced for tourism, re-enact for visitors by elderly men who had been fishing this way their entire lives.