With stunning fast-exposure shots, photographer Pierre Carreau captures crashing walls of water that look like crystallized waves frozen in time. The beauty of his work is that he creates freeze-frames of nature, allowing viewers to examine and appreciate intricate details that otherwise escape us. “Nature presents to us this vibrant energy daily wherever the ocean meets the shore,” Carreau’s website says. “We are incapable of capturing these fleeting masterpieces with our own eyes.” To achieve this effect, Carreau pays attention to details in both small and large waves, light angles and variations in reflections when shooting.
The artist, who started out as an IT professional, moved his family to the island of St. Barthlemy in the Caribbean and started honing his craft there. The photographer says that he’s fascinated by water’s “blank slate” quality that allows it to take on characteristics of its surroundings. “Water is amazing,” Carreau says. “Basically it has no color, but through reflection and refraction, it can possess all of them, the entire spectrum of light.”
