When I have been doing the evening poodlewalks with Maleko I’ve sometimes included sitting quietly on a rock to watch the sea water flowing amongst the coastal granite. Maleko either sits with me, or he looks for any golf balls buried amongst the rocks in the littoral zone.
Occasionally, I try and make a still photograph of a particular moment of the rapid movement of the waves surging amongst the rocks:
The reason that I don’t bother to photograph the water, is that it is usually difficult to make the composition, and to get the lighting right. The sea water moves so very quickly through and over the granite rocks–too quickly for me to compose the picture whilst ensuring that my feet don’t become wet from a rogue wave.When I do try, it is usually pot luck if an image on the computer screen turns out to be okay, even when I am trying to construct an abstraction, such as this. So I often resort to photographing the flow when the movement of the water has slowed right down–before it starts to ebb:
Nothing is the same as each moment is different from the last. What exists one minute doesn’t exist the next —apart from the granite rocks. The subject is very ephemeral, was each wave is quite different in its flow, speed and shape.
I can see why people turn to video. It is so much easier. Hold the camera steady and the waves flow in and out of the rocks.