Photobook dummy by Yago Soria Díaz (Spain), shortlisted for the Dummy Award 2026. As night falls, the shore of El Valle, a small village on the north-east coast of the Dominican Republic, becomes the stage of a contemporary gold rush. The book traces glass-eel fishing as a local practice driven by foreign demand and shaped by the global economy, ecological pressure and the urge to survive. The photographer has lived there since 2016, and the people in the project are neighbours and friends. A man from outside camped every winter at the river mouth, stretching nets between river and sea; a Japanese man named Tanaka once brought unfamiliar devices and told the villagers of the tiny juveniles and their value abroad. When eel species in Asia collapsed, demand exploded and prices soared: whole families went down to the river at night, using nets, strainers, buckets and repurposed plastics, and in one night could earn what once took months. Regulation, licences and military control followed, caught between institutional formality and the black market. The Dummy Award, organised by the PhotoBookMuseum in Cologne, shortlisted 48 unpublished dummies from about 325 entries from more than 45 countries; the shortlist travels on a world tour of photography events and venues.