Although Adam Dean had photographed for The New York Times in Southeast Asia before, he was excited to work with Ian Urbina on part of his investigative series, “The Outlaw Ocean.” He saw it as an opportunity to dig into a story and spend some time trying to find out what was really going in the violent, unregulated world of fishing boats in international waters.
The resulting article, “ ‘Sea Slaves’: The Human Misery that Feeds Pets and Livestock,” details the stories of fishermen who have fled forced labor. He spoke recently with the deputy picture editor Beth Flynn about his experiences on the project. Their conversation has been edited and condensed.
How did this assignment begin?
Ian turned up with a notebook full of good local contacts and NGO workers in Bangkok who were really helpful, and they gave us ideas in the early stages of development of the story — what we needed to do, and where we needed to go — and also shared some contacts and locations, and real time information, which was invaluable. I had some fixers and contacts in Thailand as well. But once we mined as much information from all this as we could, we knew that the only way to report this story was to be primarily at the port, and ultimately out on the boats.
So you found one fishing boat to go out on. How was the reception?
To get out on that fishing boat, we hopscotched from a small boat, which we hired to go out into deeper waters, and then got the captain of that small boat to radio some of his contacts and friends and find one that would let us spend some time on their boat. But we also had to make sure that we had an exit strategy, because a lot of these boats go out for weeks at a time. At the end of the day we got a bit lucky in that sense. We got on the boat and spent a couple of days with them, and then fortunately for us they had a technical problem, so we had to return to shore, rather than going out for weeks at a time.
‘Sea Slaves’ Catch Dinner for America’s Pets
For an investigative project on the violent and unregulated world of fishing in international waters, Adam Dean managed to document life aboard one such vessel.
So tell me about the 30-plus hours you were on that boat.
It was a Thai flag boat with a Thai captain, but a Cambodian crew. And they all thought it was a bit of fun to have strange foreigners wandering around asking questions and taking pictures. So everyone was generally pretty happy to have us on board and very welcoming. The captain was doing a favor to his friend whose boat we had hired to get us out there, and was happy to talk to us. He made some conditions: He didn’t want to be photographed or named.
With those types of ships the captain uses radar and on-board navigation systems to find big schools of fish. Usually, they don’t start fishing until dark because they use big lights under the water to attract the fish. It’s kind of frenetic, chaotic once the fishing starts. The boat is swinging around because it’s dragging the net, and the crew is working hard, letting the net out and pulling it in, and it’s very dangerous. We were trying to keep out of their way most of the time, but we wanted to get as close as we could without disrupting their work, or putting ourselves or them in danger. It took a bit of time to sense what I could photograph easily and safely.
And what do they do on this 50-foot boat when they’re not fishing?
The actual fishing at night is so physical and the daytime is so hot that they grab sleep whenever they can. They’re either resting, preparing food, fixing nets or cleaning the boat.
What are those conditions like?
There were about 20 to 30 people on board, and they sleep in cramped quarters in hammocks made from fishing nets. There’s really noisy engine vibrations, and at nighttime there are rats and cockroaches going around, which doesn’t seem to bother them, but it’s pretty unpleasant.
Did you have a hammock for the night you were there?
No, we didn’t. We packed light because we didn’t know how much space there was going to be, and we had equipment, so we didn’t take many creature comforts. We started off just sleeping on the deck, but then did a lot of sleeping on piles of ropes to get a bit of comfort. To be honest, I don’t think any of us got much sleep that night.
Are these workers friendly with each other?
Without speaking the language, I got the sense that everyone got along well. I think they’re forced to, living in such cramped conditions and spending so much time together out at sea. There seemed to be good camaraderie. They work hard and I’m sure there’s tension, but generally everyone seemed to get along with each other, and know what their job was and got on with it.
And were most people receptive to being photographed?
Yes. Only the captain didn’t want to be photographed.
“You realize how exposed you are walking on the rails of that boat at night with very little visibility.”
And how long was that trip back to the port?
We probably turned around at about 2 in the morning, and got back at 6 or 7 in the morning.
What happened next?
We were ultimately trying to get on resupply boats, but that didn’t work out. So we mined all of our contacts again and traveled around to other countries in the region and ended up coming back to Bangkok and down to Songkhla where we thought we had found a captain who was willing to take us out on a resupply ship, which would have been a much longer trip. It was one of these boats that basically supplies ice to the fishing fleet and brings back fish. So, boats that are going much deeper into international waters.
And so how did you end up in Songkhla?
I think there’s a few big fishing industry ports in Thailand. Songkhla has a pretty bad reputation for issues that we were trying to report. We went to a few other places, but we had the most contacts in Songkhla, so it made sense to focus on it. I think you could find those fish markets, prostitutes, nightclubs for the fishermen and the fish factories in most of these fishing ports.
Supply and demand. Did you get the sense that the workers on the boats were there of their own free will?
There were definitely a lot of people who were in indentured servitude on the boat we were on. They were given an advance on the work they were going to do, so it didn’t necessarily feel like people were locked up, and forced to work, and beaten on that boat, but who knows when we’re not around. There are probably other boats with much worse conditions than the ones that we saw.
Was this similar or different than how you usually work?
This was the first time I’d worked on a deeply investigative piece with a reporter. It was a different working process to how I typically work with a reporter, or on my own. We spent a lot of time on this. We covered a lot of countries, and we were reacting to tips and information we got and were moving around really quickly. It was great to have that much freedom and the ability to travel around and cover these stories as best we could, but as a photographer you want to spend as much time as you can shooting. A lot of the time we were investigating and reporting, and we had a lot of downtime in Songkhla when we were trying to make sure we had access to get onto the resupply boats. We had to keep a low profile in hotels because we didn’t want people to know we were in town.
How do you do that? Aren’t you going to stick out?
Of course we stuck out, especially because foreigners there really don’t hang around in the fishing ports and spend much time talking to fishermen. My instinct was to shoot every day in the ports and, quite rightly, Ian was trying to reel me back in and remind me to keep a low profile because, ultimately, our goal was to get out onto these boats. We didn’t want to expose ourselves too soon. In that sense, it was a little tricky, but I think in the end we kind of played it right.
Were there any moments that slipped through your fingers because you were being so cautious?
Not really. We spent so much of our time and energy trying to get onto these resupply boats. We kept having captains who’d agree and they’d delay the departure date again and again, or the boat would need to be repaired so the departure was delayed. Little things like that just made it frustrating because we thought we were going to spend a lot more time out at sea than we were able to.
Do you get seasick?
I don’t, thankfully. Our poor fixer, she suffered a bit in Thailand and in Indonesia when we went out.
These guys spend a large chunk of their lives living on these boats. Were they amused by you guys out there?
These guys were basically barefoot with worn-out shorts, and that’s it. So we were very carefully walking around, scared about falling in. They were sort of skipping and hopping around, like they’d lived on a boat their whole lives. I’m sure they were entertained by us and our cautiousness, but at the same time they were very generous with us and pointed us in the right direction if we were doing anything stupid. You realize how exposed you are walking on the rails of that boat at night with very little visibility. Really, if you fell in, by the time anyone noticed you weren’t there, you would be very far away from the boat. No close calls, really, but a few scary thoughts as we were bouncing along.
Did you wear a life jacket?
I did. Of course none of the fishermen had life jackets or anything like that. They were kind of amused by that.
View Part 3 of the four-part series “The Outlaw Ocean” here.
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Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the age of an unnamed Burmese migrant dock worker. He is 14, not 4.
