Motion

‘Motion’ is a documentary series about the flowing waves of the Atlantic ocean & an experimental study of motion.

The ocean is a strange place. A foreign place for me hard to grasp. That’s what I would have said before my road trip along the French west coast in September/October. I would consider myself a mountain person. I don’t need warm weather, the ocean, beaches & salty air. I would prefer to feel the cold air of a high altitudes and the rugged surface of stones rather than the grains of sand flowing through my hands. This fundamentally changed when I gave the ocean a chance during the roadtrip. For five weeks straight I have been on the beach on an almost daily basis.

During this timespan I unexpectedly developed a deep relationship to the ocean, which ended up in an intimate experience of me documenting the unique motion of flowing & crushing waves. Every moment. Every second. Different. Every wave. Every swell of water. Different. This variety of ever changing motives resulted in me photographing waves for hours. For days. And eventually for a whole month.

When photographing waves in the past with fast shutter speeds I was always simply not satisfied with the outcome. The motion was missing. The motion that made every wave crushing against the french coastal line so special. I started experimenting with slow shutter speeds in addition to camera movement to imitate and anticipate the movement the wave is going to take next. A super fun & addictive, but a rather difficult process.

For this series I worked with high focal lengths (around 300-400 like I always do) to create closeups for a more immersive feeling. It should give the viewer the feeling of being right next to the crushing wave. The slow shutter speeds (between 1/10 & 1/50) created the motion that gave life to this pictures.

This series should show the power. The movement. The motion.

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Atlantic Ocean, France / 2020

Photography / Design / Art Direction by Roland Kraemer

Find this series on Behance