Ocean Photographer of the Year accessibility - Third place

Thien Nguyen Ngoc 

Thien Nguyen is an engineer, diver, and photographer, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Thien started his photography path in 2017. Since then, he has won many remarkable international photography awards and prizes.

Location Hon Yen, Vietnam 
Equipment DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone 
Settings 1/200, f/3.5, ISO 100 
Image size 143.5 x 143.5cm

Wall Text 
“While photographing the shallow coral reefs along the coastline of Hon Yen, Phu Yen province in Vietnam, I noticed a long trail of smoke coming up from a local fishing boat operating not far from the coast,” says Nguyen Ngoc. “I decided to fly my drone to take a look and coincidentally took this image from above. It shows the soft light of a new day, illuminating the long trail of smoke from the boat’s chimney, while it perfectly aligns with the shape of the green nets moving under the surface. Many local fishing families along this coastline will follow the near-shore currents to catch anchovies during peak season. Salted anchovy is the most important raw material to create traditional fish sauce - the spirit of Vietnamese cuisine."

About the image 
The photographer used a drone to capture this shot. It was taken in the early morning on a sunny day with a gentle breeze.

An aerial view of a blue and red fishing boat on the water, surrounded by spiralling smoke and nets, fanning out on all sides into the dark water.

A feature of the fishing industry in Hon Yen is that fishers often use nets with small eyes to catch anchovies. When detecting an anchovy stream at a depth of about 30-40m, fishermen begin to drop nets and let the boat run in a circle to catch the fish.

In the centre of the image is a rectangular, wooden fishing boat with red, rounded front corners. It is approximately 18m long and 5m wide. The aerial drone makes it appear much smaller on the water. The outside is painted a rich, light blue. It noses to the right, at approximately 15 degrees, in the process of beginning to circle anticlockwise. Puffs of water vapour fill the air above and green nets fill the ocean below.

At the vessel’s rear, is a rectangle of green roof, it covers approximately a quarter of the deck. On to its flat top is one small solar panel. Smoke is spiralling from a curved, brown funnel in front of the covered area. Puffs of vapour thin out as they rise, creating a hazy mist.

The boat is open air, organised and segregated into rectangular sections of deck. These are filled with thick coils of rope, netting in clusters, and fishing goods, separated into sectionsd with thin blue sides. An area in the middle of the boat is empty. The deck is black.

Though most of the boat is pale blue, its very front section is red. Two workers in yellow hi vis and red place sections of green netting into the water, tethering each section by a rope to the bow of the boat. Light brown, evenly spaced tether-ropes slip into the water from the top left-hand corner of the hull. In front of the boat, dry, and light-coloured green netting strands splay in an L shape, clockwise to the right, around the boat’s front end, collecting as the boat starts to spiral. The dark ocean water is pleated with strands of deep green.

Multiple deck hands work towards the middle of the boat, anchoring straining netting lines to a narrow, white pipe. On the right of the workers, water exits the hull from a small hole. It makes a small, foaming circular pattern over the side, mimicking the smoke circulating above.

The thin pipe is extending diagonally, far out into the water at left, laden with net. It reaches beyond the bottom left corner of the image.

The strands of netting spiral out like the ordered, radial spokes of a bicycle wheel reaching far into the inky water, floating on the surface and continuing past the edges of the photograph on all sides.