I painted this for the light first -that particular low, golden glow when the sun is about to disappear into the water. But the scene itself, painted after a photograph of Ruben Terlou, carries something deeper.
This is cormorant fishing; a practice centuries old, where trained birds work alongside their fisherman, trusting and trusted in equal measure. I didn't know this tradition existed when I first saw the image. What struck me immediately was the ease between them -the birds unafraid, the man unhurried. It's a partnership passed down through generations.
The same quiet understanding I tried to capture once before, in a portrait of a Kazakh huntress and her eagle. Some bonds, it seems, cross species, cultures and time.