I've devoted my life to studying the ecology and conservation of pacific salmonids. If throwing my life towards their best interests is considered disrespectful, then I've failed as a human being. I understand that their probability of survival is reduced if they are held out of water for a long time. In the interest of taking a photo, I minimized this time by preparing my camera with the fish still on the line, then holding the fish under water while I laid out my rod. The fish were taken from the water, placed beside the rod, and a photo shot in a very short time frame. I know that I did little to harm either of those fish as I was gentle, prepared, and fast. As you can see by the crappy photo, I didn't even look at resulting quality of it until the fish was back in the water.
I find it alarming how much people can claim to know about how a fish was handled when they weren't there to see it through. You're behaving as if I dragged the fish onto the rocks, then toe punted it back into the water.
J