American artist and writer Allan Sekula spent seven years photographing harbors and port cities around the world. Starting out in Los Angeles and San Diego, he traveled as far as Korea, Scotland, and Poland, photographing the prosperity, poverty, and political powers that continue to play out in major port cities across the world. The result was Fish Story, a seven-chapter illustrated tomb with more than 900 color photographs, that questions what remains of our port cities in the wake of a globalized economy.

Essay by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh. Reprint of the 1995 edition from Richter Verlag.