Fishermen

Every picture captures a moment in a story, even a picture as elegantly simple as this one. In the foreground is a wide beach exposed by low tide, its sands shelving very gradually out into deeper water. The two men are fishing for prawns, big king prawns that attract a good price at the local hotel where they are served to appreciative tourists. Between them is a net which, once they've waded out, they'll drag through the water. It was cool when they set out in the morning so they brought jackets which they have hung on top of two poles pushed into the sand.

Much further out, another fisherman is returning home with his catch. He sails an ngalowa, a dugout canoe with an outrigger to keep it stable and a lateen sail to speed it through the water. He fishes far out and alone through the night, using a long, hand-held line. His home is a small village consisting of a huddle of makuti-thatched houses, a few miles up the coast.

Both fishermen suffer from the same problem: their catches are dwindling. The prawn-fishermen's worry is that there is more and more competition from a growing population; for the ngalowa fisherman, it is the same but he also has modern, foreign fishing boats to compete with.

This is a moment in their story - and mine, because I took the photograph.