It’s a clear, crisp day in Boddam, the kind that makes you want to soak up the last dregs of warmth before winter creeps in.
A lone fisherman is perched on the harbour, his line cast into the brilliant blue of the sea.
Generations have made a living from the water at Peterhead, which is still home to the trade today.
As the figure continues to wait patiently, a steady succession of lorries rumbles past.
They tell of a drastically changed industry, where fish is shipped worldwide rather than sold door to door.
Ironically, you might miss the sprawling factory, which is Thistle Seafoods, as it is tucked away off a sharp bend overlooking the harbour front.
The business, which has been on the go for almost 70 years, is one of the largest family-owned manufacturers of seafood in Europe.
With three large open halls, dozens of people work the lines with 150 products sent to supermarkets around the world.
There are a variety of roles available, and you don’t need to be elbow deep in fish guts to join the industry.
The gutting quines followed the herring fleet from Orkney to Yarmouth, while wives and mothers baited lines, mended nets and walked miles to sell the catch all in the knowledge that the sea could make them a fishing widow at any time.
The role that women played in fishing is celebrated through Fisher Jessie, a sculpture of a woman and child which can be found on Marischal Street in Peterhead town centre.
As the industry changed and wooden barrels were no longer filled with fish and salt, the role that women played also altered.
Once very public figures, their work now takes place behind closed doors in modern factories.
Award-winning photographer Craig Easton is determined that women in the fishing industry both past and present will continue to be respected, with stories told and retold for the next generation.
His book, Fisherwomen, is a series of portraits which were shot over seven years, with women in the fishing industry photographed from Shetland to Great Yarmouth.
The powerful images offer a glimpse of a world now rarely seen.
Craig believes the herring lassies were a unique phenomenon in the history of British women at work.
He started taking pictures of women in the fishing industry in 2013, although it was a further four years before he knew their stories needed to be told.
Craig followed the route which the herring girls would have taken, and was able to capture striking portraits along the way.
We’re talking about a band of female-only migratory workers, who from 1860 onward left their families behind to follow the Scottish herring fleets to gut, salt and pickle the catch, said Craig.
The work was tough, the salt ate into their fingers and they worked long hours in uncovered, unpaved yards surrounded by fish guts.
As workers they were fiercely respected, and the women valued their independence.
Craig opted to first take pictures in Aberdeen, before travelling to Fraserburgh and Peterhead.
Everybody once knew these women as characters, but who is doing that work now? he said.
Well, the answer is that women are still doing that work, but behind closed doors in factories and packing houses.
I wanted to turn the light back on these women, because they inspired us so much in the past and still deserve to be celebrated.
I’m a great believer in telling stories and knocking on doors, but how do you get into communities?
As long as you’re open, honest and curious, people will want to talk to you. What people really need is a damn good listening to.
Craig hoped to find characters who had once dominated the quays, with their gossip and fierce loyalty to one another.
He was not disappointed, despite finding himself the subject of good-natured jokes.
As a bloke going into a factory full of women, I was definitely ripped, continued Craig.
The phrase screech like a fishwife’ comes from the idea that there were these characters who hollered on the quayside.
The atmosphere lives on, women still sing on the production lines.
Craig also interviewed women who had originally worked in the fishing industry during the 1940s and ’50s.
He discovered that those working in fishing today were unaware of the communities upon which the trade was founded.
I met older women and they fell about laughing at the health and safety kit of today, said Craig.
How different it was for them, working outdoors and elbow deep in fish guts.
The fishing communities could be matriarchal in that women did everything while the men were at sea.
I found that some of the younger women of today didn’t necessarily know this story.
It’s a terrible thing that we stopped telling their stories, and I felt the stories in general needed updating.
We need to connect the contemporary experience to the history it’s important to have these pictures to look back on.
What we take pictures of now will be the historical photographs of tomorrow.
You can’t leave it to people with Instagram accounts and iPhones.
There used to be these enormous portraits of the great and the good; I photograph ordinary people.
I want to show an enormous respect to these women.
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