Tim Hussin: Better than Sex

I grew up on the coast of Florida, and I’m always plagued with this attraction to water in every new city I visit. So, when I arrived to San Francisco for the 2009 Hearst Shootout, I headed to Fishermen’s Wharf to find some gritty and gruff fishermen to hang around. I trudged through the tacky, overpriced tourist shops and finally made it past that unspoken barrier between the tourists and the fishermen. It’s that invisible wall that divides the air-conditioned shops with that fake cordial “authenticity” and the fishermen—raw and beautiful, engulfed with the solitude of the ocean. This interaction between the fishermen and life on the water is what I hoped to capture.
The focus of the assignment was ritual. But ritualism on the water for these stoic men is not easily seen. It’s subtle. I found tidbits here and there.—a pirate tattoo that one man would add to on trips back to land, a man who would smoke a joint every time he docked and one fisherman who told me he’d rather die than not fish. “It’s like therapy,” he said. “It’s better than sex.” After those words of wisdom, I knew I had found something special. Photography, I thought, is the perfect medium to capture this subtle ritualistic nature of fishing. It’s those small moments that express it so beautifully—a puff on a joint, a quick gaze at the receding skyline, a bird’s flight and the celebratory chicken wings and beer. Although the majority of what I saw was physical labor, I tried to wait for off moments that would express ritual. Seeing in this way is where I am trying to take my vision, since generally I am more interested in what happens around the action rather than the action itself.

We set out to sea, with open arms and eyes. As I sat on the boat offshore gazing at the receding San Francisco skyline with that cool post-sunset light, I was brought back home on the coast of Florida as a child. A wave of comfort drifted through me. I realized I was not only discovering the rituals of bay-area fishermen but was refreshing my own deep connection to the sea. It brings back that nostalgia that connects me emotionally to my work. And in the end, even if that feeling does not translate to viewers, the images at least rekindle my personal memories and inspire personal growth as a photographer and storyteller. As most of my photography is pretty literal, ambiguity is something I hope to explore in future projects. This raises the question: Does ambiguity and mystery in images leave more to be explored by the viewer, like a complex album that takes months or years to really begin to understand? Or does photography have more value as a literal documentation of the world around us?

The story received awards in both the 64th CPOY competition and the 2009 Hearst shootout.