“…softened in milk and cooked in many splendorous ways…“

Personally, I account for years not by anniversaries but by recurrent family celebrations. Anniversaries are closer to one’s skin, but those larger family celebrations are closer to one’s heart. The Portuguese celebrate the ultimate family gathering – in Christmas – with one major meal on the night of the 24th of December. In it there’s one single universal Portuguese staple. Dried and salted cod, softened in milk and cooked in many splendorous ways with good olive oil and love. 

Like any other Portuguese, I never gave much thought for the fish, beyond assuming it was flat and headless – which until recently was the way everyone saw the cod being sold in Portugal. But codfish is brown and golden-speckled (in Norway it is called “the gold from the sea” for this and other more pecuniary reasons) and sports a curious moustache that makes it look vaguely Dali-nian.   

I first saw a cod “in person” in September 1998.  I was underwater alone, over a sandy step on the fjord that leads to Hareid. The fjord is immensely deep (close to 1000 m) and faces the ocean; it is a very interesting dive because you never know what may show up in front of your camera. I was hovering around a medusa, trying to photograph a tiny fish that danced in and out of its deadly tentacles, when I felt a “presence”. If you’ve ever been hunted you know – it’s something that straightens the little hairs behind your neck and raises the adrenaline dial to level 2.

I turned around and there was this huge fish, calmly swimming towards me – probably my size, clearly four times bigger than me right at that moment. I’ve had several solo encounters with lonely big fish – typically shark and barracuda – and their calm power project a potential danger that a frantic behavior would lessen. I relaxed when, upon a double-take, I understood he was toothless. It was a very large, adult, codfish. I thought very hard to myself “I hope he doesn’t understand I’m Portuguese…”

             “I turned around and there was this huge fish, calmly swimming towards me“

             “It was there and then that I decided I would try to understand codfish, and create images of cod and codfishing “at the source”.“

We stared at each other, eye to eye, for seconds that took forever. There’s something about cross-species eye-to-eye interaction, it will never leave you unchanged. Me wondering why this harmless fish acted so fearless, he wondering what a bubble-maker like me was doing there. As usual in these situations, I don’t know if we understood each other, but I know I understood myself better. He then turned around and slowly dissolved its form into the ocean. It was there, on that September of 1998, alone in the ocean, that I decided I would try to understand codfish, and create images of cod and cod fishing “at the source”.