South Africa’s four month, strict lockdown prohibited people from accessing beaches. This applied to ocean-lovers like surfers, paddlers, free divers and spear-fishers. Upon entering level 2 of lockdown, free divers and spear-fishers began hopping back into Cape Town’s waters. In areas where recreational spear-fishing could take place, a local free diver from Simonstown noticed that more reef fish had moved into those areas – probably due to the lack of humans over the past four months. However, over two weekends of good diving conditions, recreational spear-fishers came in and shot most of the reef fish that were in the area.

Joel Griffin, who has been spear-fishing for the past four years, believes a spear-fisher should consider the legality (size limit of the fish) and morality (how much bigger the fish is over the legal size limit) before spearing a fish. A pet peeve of Joel’s is when people go out to shoot fish but don’t have a specific purpose and end up shooting small fish to feel good about themselves. “I generally only shoot a fish for a specific purpose. Most of my spearfishing is actually freediving with a gun just in case,” says Joel.

This photo essay is meant to challenge what is the purpose behind one’s recreational activity and to question who or what is being impacted by it.

I draw on the comparison between a spear-fisherman (Joel Griffin) and an underwater photographer (Dani Wentzel). I’m looking at both as recreational activities. Both use the concept of freediving. One enters the water with a camera, the other with a spear gun. One exits the water with a photo and a memory, the other exits with a fish.