FISHERMAN´S OIL

  • Dates
    2019 - Ongoing
  • Author
  • Locations Venezuela, Maracaibo

The landscape of Venezuela’s once robust oil industry lies all around fishermen and their families who live in villages clustered on the edge of Lake Maracaibo.

Their struggles on a briny bay fouled by petroleum seeps and derelict oil rigs are etched onto their faces and stained into their clothes.

Seeing these people and this place on an earlier reporting trip, I knew I had to return with my box camera to make black and white portraits of the fisherman and the industrial decay they call home. The slower pace and mood of box photography would help capture the poignancy and pain of Cabimas where fisherman live and work among idle, gray machinery. I thought it deserved using this camera because there was a special connection achieved in the “mean time” . That moment of waiting and silence does not feels the same, not for me neither for the characters in front of the camera. It is not the same as with the digital camera. While we spend our days covering the skirmishes of the international actors on duty, there are men, women and children who feed on fish and oil-covered crabs, contaminated by the constant spills of the oil industry on Lake Maracaibo, one of the largest in South America and its destruction is extraordinary, people are being poisoned and dying in all the surroundings.

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

July 11, 2019. Fisherman Antonio Tello poses for the picture with her daughter Genesis Tello while cleaning oil stained crabs freshly caught by him from Lake Maracaibo

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

May 18, 2019 photo, an oil drenched overall use by a fisherman dries in a house near La Salina, Venezuela's state-run PDVSA crude oil shipping terminal, on Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

Juy 3, 2019 photo, fishing families Elizalzabal and Silva poses for the picture outside on of their houses in front of Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

Dec.2, 2019, fishermen helped by assistants drag the boat to the shore after arriving with freshly harvested crabs from Lake Maracaibo, in Punta Gorda, Cabimas,

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

May 18, 2019 photo, fisherman William Vilchez poses for the picture on a boat while arriving to the shoreline covered with oil caused by the neglected and lack of maintenance of the state owned PDVSA in and around Lake Maracaibo

© RODRIGO ABD - July 8 16, 2019 photo, a damaged coach is seen outside a fisherman house in Cabimas
i

July 8 16, 2019 photo, a damaged coach is seen outside a fisherman house in Cabimas

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

July 9, 2019 photo, a contaminated swamp by oil is seen near La Salina, Venezuela's state-run PDVSA crude oil shipping terminal, on Lake Maracaibo

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

Dec.2, 2019. Madelein Matos (21), cleans oil from freshly harvested crabs from Lake Maracaibo next to her son Dilan Velasquez, 3, in Punta Gorda, Cabimas, Venezuela. " I'm a single mom and I have to work on this that I don't like very much, but I have to do it to buy food for Dilan”

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

uly 11, 2019. Ionervis Gonzales poses poses for the picture holding is catch after a day work on Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - July 12, 2019 photo, Romuel Sambrea fishermen called "Tripero" poses for the picture after a day work on Lake Maracaibo
i

July 12, 2019 photo, Romuel Sambrea fishermen called "Tripero" poses for the picture after a day work on Lake Maracaibo

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

In this July 5, 2019 photo, fishermen get ready to start a new work day in crab fishing in Maracaibo lake, Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - Juy 10, 2019. Fisherman Milton Pena poses for the picture after a journey fishing crabs on Lake Maracaibo
i

Juy 10, 2019. Fisherman Milton Pena poses for the picture after a journey fishing crabs on Lake Maracaibo

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

Juy 3, 2019 photo, fisherman Alejandro Elizalzabal poses for the picture after a journey on Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - July 9, 2019, La Salina, Venezuela's state-run PDVSA crude oil shipping terminal, on Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.
i

July 9, 2019, La Salina, Venezuela's state-run PDVSA crude oil shipping terminal, on Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

May 18, 2019. Objects on the shoreline covered with oil witness the destruction caused by the neglected and lack of maintenance of the state owned PDVSA in and around Lake Maracaibo

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

In this July 8 16, 2019 photo, men gather on top of an oil pump jack run by the state owned PDVSA that is not working for lack of maintenance. Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

July 3, 2019. Fabiola Elizalzabal cleans the fish caught by her father near Venezuela's state-run PDVSA crude oil shipping terminal called La Salina.

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

In this Juy 3, 2019 photo,Ingrid Hernandez, 51, poses for the picture after a journey on Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.

© RODRIGO ABD - Image from the FISHERMAN´S OIL photography project
i

In this Juy 3, 2019 photo, fisherman Juzman Garcia, 40, poses for the picture after a journey on Lake Maracaibo at Cabimas, Venezuela.

Latest Projects

Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Stay in the loop


We will send you weekly news on contemporary photography. You can change your mind at any time. We will treat your data with respect. For more information please visit our privacy policy. By ticking here, you agree that we may process your information in accordance with them. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.