Photographer and fisherman Corey Arnold's latest book, Fish-Work, documents life on a crab-fishing boat in Alaska's Bering Sea. It's a captivating look into a world that doesn't often reach the dinner table—a place with staggering natural beauty, giant ocean swells, and half-crazy commercial fishermen pulling traps in one of the most fulfilling and deadliest jobs.
I spoke with Arnold from his home in Portland, Oregon.
GOOD: When did you start fishing and how did you end up working in the Bering Sea?
Corey Arnold: Since I was old enough to walk, I would go sport fishing with my dad in Southern California. After my first year of college, I drove to Alaska with a buddy and we started commercial salmon fishing that summer. A few years later, in 2002, I was in San Francisco after graduating and the dot com boom had crashed, so I went to Seattle and walked docks looking for a high-seas job. I found a job jigging for cod and the owner offered me a job on the F/V Rollo. I was interested in making some money and I ended up going crab fishing. That’s when I decided I was going to get serious about doing a commercial fishing photo project.
GOOD: What's it like to go out on one of these boats?
Arnold: My boat was 107 feet long. It takes about a day each way to reach the crab grounds from Dutch Harbor, Alaska. It can take anywhere from three to eight days to fill the boat with crab. We’d bring live crab back, offload them, and then turn right around and go back out again. Our boat could hold 180,000 pounds of oplilio crab, and 140,000 pounds of King crab, so we would catch massive quantities. They’re really abundant out there.
GOOD: Are you constantly shooting, or are you predominantly pulling in traps and only shooting whenever there's a break in the work?
Arnold: The vast majority time I’m working. I can’t let photography inhibit my job as fishermen. I’d bargain with the other crew. If the weather or the light was perfect, I would ask them, “Do you mind if I shoot for five minutes?” I would run in and put on my gloves. I was shooting in short bursts. There were a lot of amazing moments that I missed, but the advantage is that I’m out there all the time, whereas as a photographer who came up for one week could have a boring trip.
GOOD: So do you eat a lot of fish or crab that you catch yourself? And do you think that's sustainable?
Arnold: I have a chest freezer filled with crab and salmon. Now, I own my own salmon fishing boat. I fish commercially for six weeks in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Salmon is probably the most sustainable wild fishing left in the world. Last year was the seventh most abundant run we’ve ever had. But I actually found the Kvichak River, where I fish now, in 2008 when writer Tim Sohn and I did a story about the proposed Pebble Mine for Outside magazine. The open pit mine would be among the largest in the world and the dam that would hold back its toxic tailings will be larger in mass than the Three Gorges Dam in China. They want to put it at the headwaters of the largest Sockeye salmon producing river system in the world and it’s extremely worrisome. People don’t want a mine in their backyard, but lucky for the mining company, it’s not many people’s backyard, except the fish, the fisherman, and the native Alaskans. There is an urgent need to get the word out about this threat to the rest of the world.
GOOD:Some people think of fishermen as jackasses exploiting the sea and ruining our natural resources. Your photographs show guys horsing around; how do you go about portraying their lives authentically without misrepresenting fishing's toll on the environment?
Arnold: I try to show the fantastic situations that we experience out there. Fishing work in the Bering Sea is rife with supernatural sights, scenes that most people will never experience, unimaginably large waves and incredible characters, some of whom are half-crazy. There’s a lot of humor involved to make the work more fun. But the book’s not really about the environmental issues. And anyway, crab fishing is very low-impact, except for the fuel consumption. We're dropping pots straight to bottom of this vast desert of mud. There's almost zero bycatch. Not all fishermen are to blame for the lack of fish in some oceans, I think it's up to the policy-makers to balance science with local knowledge and set sustainable limits on fishing. I’m hoping my work will lead to discussions and a broader knowledge of where our seafood comes from, so that the consumer can make better choices.
Ketel Marte was brought to tears during an MLB game after facing a shameful fan taunt.
Baseball manager's poignant support for a player brought to tears after shameful fan taunt
Whether they’re expecting perfection from their favorite players or, worse, behaving callously toward opposing teams, sports fans often forget that athletes are human beings. But athletic competition has the ability to unify and uplift, even amid such painful and unpleasant encounters. Take, for example, a major-league baseball game held June 24, 2025 between the home team Chicago White Sox and visiting Arizona Diamondbacks.
A shameful low point occurred when Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte was at bat in the seventh inning. Per ESPN, a fan reportedly yelled out a comment regarding Marte’s late mother, Elpidia Valdez, who died in a 2017 car accident in the Dominican Republic. Team personnel, including manager Torey Lovullo, then requested the 22-year-old fan be ejected. (Though he was remorseful and admitted his actions were inappropriate, according to an ESPN source, he was nonetheless banned indefinitely from all MLB ballparks.) "We commend the White Sox for taking immediate action in removing the fan," the MLB said in a statement. Marte reportedly declined to comment.
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While the fan’s behavior is inexcusable, it did spark a powerful and inspiring moment. After hearing the comment, Marte was visibly upset, prompting Lovullo to walk on the field, put his arm around him, and offer some words of encouragement. "[I said,] 'I love you, and I’m with you, and we’re all together, and you’re not alone,'" Lovullo said in a post-game interview, as documented by The Rich Eisen Show. "'No matter what happens, no matter what was said or what you’re heard, that guy is an idiot.’"
According to Arizona Republic, Lovullo heard the fan’s comment but didn’t want to repeat it. “I looked right at [Marte] when I heard,” he said. “I looked right at him, and he looked at the person, as well. He put his head down and I could tell it had an immediate impact on him, for sure."
Elsewhere in the post-game interview, the manager called the moment "terrible" and reflected on why he stood up for Marte. "Fans are nasty, and fans go too far sometimes," he said. "I love my players, and I’m gonna protect them…I’ve known Ketel for nine years. He’s had some unbelievably great moments and some hardships as well and some really tough moments in his life. I know those. At the end of the day, we’re human beings, and we have emotions. I saw him hurting, and I wanted to protect him."
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The following day, the Chicago White Sox X account sent out a message in support of Marte, writing, "We’re with you" and "Baseball is family." On The Rich Eisen Show, the show's host addressed the need to eradicate this kind of toxic athlete-fan interaction: "I was hearing [people saying], 'There’s no place for this in major league baseball.' There isn’t. There’s no place for this in our society. I understand that people are saying the MLB has got to do something about this. Fans have a right to heckle players—this is something that has happened forever…But there is a line."
In another recent, depressing sports moment with a beautiful coda, let’s look to Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the eventual champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder. During the first quarter, Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton tore his right Achilles tendon—a devastating injury that could potentially sideline him for most of the 2025-2026 season. Following the game, in a lovely display of sportsmanship, Thunder point-guard and league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went to the Pacers locker room to check on his competitor. In a press conference, he said, "You just hate to see it, in sports in general. But in this moment, my heart dropped for him. I can't imagine playing the biggest game of my life and something like that happening. It’s so unfortunate."
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