Nick Melidonis comes clean with a great story about the photo that is on the cover of the current issue of Better Photography. 

Nick shot a series of images over a few days in September 2008, "using a large, ‘clunky’ Canon EOS 1D-S Mk III body (21-megapixels) with 24-105mm and 100-400mm L-series lenses. The body weighed 1.4 kg without a lens and anything around ISO 400 and up was fairly noisy. On top of that, for some reason, the images were somewhat underexposed and with the dark skin of the fishermen, there wasn’t a lot of detail to work with.

"The assignment for Singapore Airlines was part of what was called ‘Double Indulgence’. That meant one destination was Singapore and the other destination was one where Singapore Airlines flew to. We did this annual assignment over some years with destinations that included Shenzhen in China, Seim Reap in Cambodia and Bangkok in Thailand. 

"On every assignment, Singapore Airlines would invite several journalists from all the leading newspapers, lifestyle and gourmet magazines. My job was to liaise with the journalists so I could capture a good selection of images which were specific to their needs and they would write an article on that year’s theme – and of course, Singapore Airlines.

"In 2008, the theme was health and we were booked into a top Ayurvedic retreat on a hilltop above the sea in Kerala, India. This stunning setting overlooked a pristine fishing village on the beach below where every morning around dawn, the fishermen would launch their boats into the surf and return later in the day to share their meagre catch with the whole village. Each morning, before I started to shoot the Ayurvedic Retreat’s activities for the day, I would run down the steps to photograph the fishermen on the beach. After the second day, the fishermen were used to my presence and I found I could go right amongst them, on the beach and into the surf to photograph their daily routine.

"I felt so privileged to be accepted by them and it produced one of the most satisfying shoots I had done in years. The images were processed on the way back from Singapore on a laptop and I was able to provide the journalists with what they needed when we landed."

But that's not how this became Nick's biggest selling photo ever. And, you guessed it, if you want to find out, you'll need to read about it in Better Photography - you can subscribe at www.betterphotographyeducation.com.