Stilts fisherman by BL Photography

About "Stilts fisherman"

by BL Photography

About the artwork

When you look for inspiration photos of Sri Lanka, you quickly come across fishermen sitting on stilts at a beautiful sunrise or sunset. These are the so-called pole fishermen or in English the "stilts fishermen.

When you ask the Sri Lankans themselves about the stilts fishermen, the answer you get is that they are no longer there or you are referred to the commercial stilts fisherman. The latter is not a real fisherman, but a Sri Lankan who pretends to be a pole fisherman by posing on a pole with a fishing rod in his hands. You can find them all day long right along the coast, mostly close to a busy road, so tourists can find them easily. For them they are only too happy to pose, for a fee of course. So of course you also have a photo of a man on a pole, but you don't get the authentic image of the work of a pole fisherman.

The real pole fisherman is not necessarily waiting for photo money because he earns his money with, you guessed it, catching fish. Moreover, you only see these fishermen at sunrise or sunset sitting on a pole, a few meters away from shore in the sea. Here they brave the sometimes high waves on the hunt for fish. In the evening, they sell the caught fish as soon as they come ashore because then the locals are already ready to buy the fish from them. This whole thing is an extraordinary sight that you will only see in Sri Lanka, or in this photo.