National Galleries of Scotland

This striking photograph is full of movement and vitality ? the stormy clouds, the salmon wrestling in the net and tide foaming at the shore. The central, anchoring figure is salmon netter Bob Ritchie. He is shown lifting a salmon through the pocket of a 'jumper' net at low tide on the sands at Kinnaber, Angus. It was taken as part of a ten-year long project by McPherson to document the decline of the Scottish salmon netting industry. Bob Ritchie became a central figure in the series. As a third generation netsman, Ritchie was the last of a generation to practise this craft. By 2007, only a handful of men still caught wild salmon and sea trout using traditional methods such as this.