Shingle beach, Worthing

SM692 is the registration on the hull of one of them. Shoreham, the prefix says — though these boats work the Worthing stretch. The boats sit in a line, close together. The colour contrast between hulls is incidental, not arranged: red next to blue next to white, each one its own commercial history.

The crates are stacked in columns on the shingle beside them — red, blue, white plastic, the kind that go in and out of cold storage and get stacked by habit rather than system. Nets and equipment sit in the open. Nothing is locked or stored away. The beach is the workspace and the storage.

This is a community selling catch to regular customers. Not a fish market, not a restaurant supply operation — individual customers who come back weekly, who know the boats and probably know the fishermen. The kind of arrangement that doesn't appear in any business model and persists because it's embedded.

I didn't photograph the fishermen themselves. The boats and equipment are the document: the multiple tall rods on SM692, the tackle arranged around the hull, the shingle surface between them worn with use. The boats are more patient subjects. They don't move when you raise the camera.