THE ART & GLORY OF OCEAN WAVES NOW

The ocean stunned us, yet again. This time in ways we’ve never seen before. Check out the amazing images captured by four brilliant photographers, each with a new vision and perspective on the magnificence of waves.

RAY COLLINS

Photographer Ray Collins reveals the ocean’s complexity in his series of high-definition wave images.

Once a coal miner, Collins began his photography career in 2007, when he started capturing images of his friends surfing. He beautifully refers to the time when he switched careers, as the balance in his “black life and blue life.”

The more he spent time among the ocean, the more he became excited about the way light plays with waves.

Collins’ vibrant wave portraits resemble glazed mountaintops. Light highlights their edges, curves, and spray.

Collins’ wave photos have been featured in Vogue, Wired, and other major media as well as in campaigns for Apple, Nikon & Red Bull. He is winner of Australian Surf Photo of the Year 2015 and the American Aperture Awards, and is a shortlisted finalist in the prestigious Smithsonian Annual Photo Contest.

You can see more photographs in his book, Found At Sea.

PIERRE CARREAU

Ocean waves are ephemeral, no matter how big and powerful some might be. Yet, they look as if they are beautiful, heavy solid masses of thick glass or dense metal, carved in the hands of photographer Pierre Carreau.

In his AquaViva series of high-speed photographs, Carreau captures waves, freezing them in time, as if they were kinetic sculptures, showing great detail, intricate form and driving, ever-changing, energy.

“The gentle sweep of a wave’s rising surface in one image may call to mind the rejuvenating and purifying effects of water,” explains Carreau. “The brilliance of light refracted through a single droplet suspended in mid-air at the leading edge of a spilling arch makes us think of the element’s vital function in our lives and in the life of the planet.”

Carreau has been working on the AquaViva collection for over a decade, creating hundreds of wave portraits. Although he studied business and IT, he initially became interested in waves in 2004 after his family moved to the island of St. Barthélemy, in the Caribbean.

Fascinated with everything from the way light shines through the wave formations and refracts to dazzle with a myriad of colors, to the dichotomy of calm and danger waves yield, from the monumental power to the smallest variation, Carreau connected so deeply with the beauty of ocean, he embraced it as his open-air studio.

DEB MORRIS

It’s the little things that matter most to photographer Deb Morris. She makes the most of them in her incredible photographs of miniature waves as they gently curl into the beaches of Australia.

While this surf might inspire Lilliputians to hang ten, at only 5 - 30 cm in size, it moved Morris to take thousands of photos, capturing their delicate glory, each reflecting a special moment in the smallest parts of the seascape.

Morris doesn’t use water housing while taking her photographs to allow her greater flexibility to catch the waves in the most beautiful ways.

This Bondi Beach native only began her photography career 3 years ago, yet has now created a collection of over 3,000 brilliant miniature wave portraits.

Read more about Beautiful Ocean, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Beautiful Oceans in 10 Gorgeous New Books,  Mind-Blowing Spineless Ocean Life Now and Gorgeous Ocean Dining Treasures.

Want more stories like this? Sign up for our weekly BN Newsletter, Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr. Join our BeautifulNow Community and connect with the most beautiful things happening in the world right now!

 

Do you have amazing photos? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Competition. We run new creative competitions every week! Now, it’s even easier to enter with the new BeautifulNow App!

Plus check out the rest of our App’s beautiful features. It’s free to download here.

IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Ray Collins. Sunburst.
2. Image: by Ray Collins. Convection.
3. Image: by Ray Collins. Underwater.
4. Image: by Ray Collins. Beneath the Vortex.
5. Image: by Ray Collins. Rainbow.
6. Image: by Ray Collins. Oil.
7. Image: by Pierre Carreau. AquaViva Series.
8. Image: by Pierre Carreau. AquaViva Series.
9. Image: by Pierre Carreau. AquaViva Series.
10. Image: by Pierre Carreau. AquaViva Series.
11. Image: by Pierre Carreau. AquaViva Series.
12. Image: by Deb Morris. WAVEART.
13. Image: by Deb Morris. WAVEART.
14. Image: by Deb Morris. WAVEART.
15. Image: by Ray Collins. Golden Peak.
16. Image: by Deb Morris. Wave Art.
17. Image: by BN App - Download now!
18. Image: by Ray Collins. Snow Mountain.