For millennium, artists and writers have been devoted to the beauty of the natural world. When Byron wrote ‘I love not man the less but nature more’. He described not man’s insignificance, but rather the natural world’s magnificence. Human life is by comparison fragile and temporary whereas nature is indestructible and everlasting.
Perhaps there is nothing in the natural world that illustrates the abundance and force of nature more than the sea. Oceans cover two thirds of the surface of the planet, and there are parts more mysterious and unexplored than the surface of the moon. Humans have benefited from the sea but have also been victim to its unstoppable power.
The medium of photography allows a modern day rethinking of romanticism, one where intimate portraits need not be sacrificed to awe-inspiring landscapes, but rather placed alongside for a commingling of perspectives. What remains is the focal feature of the landscape. In addition, we now see the faces revelling in its wonder.
This work sets to encapsulate the feeling of being under nature’s mercy and the pure comfort and realisation this brings. The moments of control of the ocean are our mortal moments of weakness; we come here to feel that innate sense of being human, and express our affections for it.
The series documents what it is to be ourselves in this ever changing and ever moving landscape and our futile attempts to visually constrain its expanse.
