About Tom Kerrigan

I make documentary photographs of coastal industry and the people who work it. Most of my time goes to long-form personal projects—months spent on trawlers, in shipyards, at fish auctions, following the work as it happens. Alongside that, I take on editorial assignments and commissions.

The work is in black and white. There's no styling, no art direction beyond choosing where to stand and when to shoot. These are photographs of real work—the detail of a knot, the angle of light on steel, the expression of someone who's done this ten thousand times.

I spend weeks or months embedded with my subjects. That time matters. A trawlerman doesn't change how he works because there's a camera present—not after the first week. The photographs come from being there long enough that the work itself becomes the story.

I'm after reportage, not arrangement. I'm not interested in posing people or reconstructing moments. The photograph either documents what actually happened, or it doesn't. That's the boundary.

The projects take me to specific places—ports, yards, fishing grounds—because the work is specific. Coastal industry has its own geography, its own language, its own logic. You have to be there to see it.

I take on a small number of commissions each year. Most are reportage—follow a process, document a place, tell a story in photographs. Posed work is less common.

I travel. Commissions aren't limited to any one region. If the work is interesting and the time available, I'll go.

Details on the Commission page.