Water Pictures: The Power of Nature

Surfer and photographer Ray Collins is an aesthetic daredevil. When he goes into the water with his camera to get close to massive waves, the ocean tosses and churns turbulently around him. He waits for the perfect wave, not to ride it this time, but to capture its untamed beauty in that fleeting moment of its perfect existence. What we see lasts only a mere instant: a perfect and classically beautiful sculpture modelled purely from wind and water. The Huffington Post writes “Ray sees waves the way you’ve never seen them … capturing the swells in otherworldly perspective. They can be mountainous, menacing and flat-out gorgeous.”

In the work of Peter Yan, a young photographer based out of Australia, the camera takes a vertical view of a swimming pool embedded in a rock island. These pools, built right next to the ocean to harness the power of nature for their own purposes, are common on the coasts of Australia. They are filled with seawater as well as an incredible aesthetic effect. In Yan’s pictures, the pools are a thrilling dialog between nature and art. Peter Yan on Instagram: @yantastic.

Italian photographer Alessandro Puccinelli shows the enormous artistic power inherent in water. His pictures follow in the tradition of 19th century sea and storm paintings, waves and ocean spray thundering through the image and transforming the smallest film grain, the tiniest pixel, into energetic, foamy particles. In a contrast-heavy game of light and shadow, moonlight and darkness, the massive waves morph into imposing clouds of water. He say it is "as if the ocean is taking a moment before its rage inevitably and relentlessly starts again with the next wave." You can practically hear the waves crashing!

Animal encounters occupy a significant role in the intersection between mankind and nature. Documentary filmmaker Joe Bunni engineered run-ins with wildlife in an extreme location: the icy Norwegian Sea. Polar bears are strong swimmers, which makes close encounters with them amidst high waves very impressive. The young, female polar bear curiously swam up to the lens, Bunni says. When she bumped into it with her nose, she was startled and backed off. Apparently, encountering your doppelganger and being scared of it is not unique to humans.