Living by the sea there is an inevitability of taking pictures of it. The sea. On the sea are waves. Sometimes big, sometimes small.
It’s always impressive when a storm arrives and the waves become fierce. These are the waves visitors often photograph. Energetic, chaotic, predominately white.
Typical storm wave
As I looked at waves more closely I started to notice some interesting details. They would drive up shingle in the wave. This shingle would often be seen in the wave edge.
Shingle on wave edge.
The dancing shingle you can see in this image is actually being dragged back to the sea by the receding flow of the water.
Photographing the waves on calmer days also started to reveal some interesting results. When the sea is calm the light rays pick up colour from 2 distinct regions The sky and the seabed/shingle.
Wave showing blue and tan colouring inherent in Hastings waves
To get these images of the shingle I needed to get quite close to the wave front. I startede to use the concrete groynes that go into the sea.
Using the concrete groynes I was using to get closer to the wave front, I could also view the wave from the side to get a much better view of the profile of the wave.
Side profile of a forming wave.
During storms the waves would impact the concrete groynes and create interesting patterns.
Wave impact at the Goat Ledge during a storm.
