The Old Guard

It’s Saturday before I make it down to the fish market in Funchal’s Mercado dos Lavradores. G has gone on am organised walk along the San Lorenzo peninsula, so I plan to walk into town. Ideally I need to get there fairly early, but equally, I know I’ll want sunlight shining in through windows and doorways, and as it’s now raining I postpone my visit. 

Eventually, the weather improves, but it’s close to midday by the time I reach the market, and there’s relatively little fish left. What’s almost more disappointing is that some of the characters I photographed some 18 months ago aren’t there, and I miss the heavily tattooed arms of fishmongers on my last visit.

Still, there’s plenty to look at; lines of monstrous black scabbard fish draped over benches; huge meaty  hunks of tuna glistening in the light; small silvery shoals lying still on silver work surfaces. 

The skill of the workers is still on show as they expertly fillet and clean fish, or descale them under running water, silvery scales flying into the air. One man takes a whole tuna, massive and beautiful, and starts to prepare it with almost religious respect for this magnificent creature. As a pescatarian, it’s easy to think of fish as bloodless, but this man is up to his elbows in blood before he washes off the visceral evidence and restores the now cleaned tuna to its pristine state.

And there are two characters that I keep returning to. Deeply tanned and lined, brightly coloured tops tight across pot-bellies, arms folded - perhaps in disapproval. I get the impression they may be in charge of proceedings, and as the ‘old guard’ consider things are not as they remember - though of course they may simply be passing the time of day together! 

My main features the ‘old guard’ (best viewed large) with an extra of them in colour overlooking proceedings. Edit - I’ve changed these round as I decided I liked the colour better!)  There’s a further colour extra of the tuna preparation, followed by two collages.