The Art of Waves

Photo by Clark Little

The wave that used to be on my homepage was shot off the southwest coast of Australia. When big waves form off the coast by my house in Hawaii, people sometimes drive to the cliffs with folding chairs to sit and watch the sets—a theatrical performance in many acts, that comes with its own self-generated applause. But it’s one thing to watch the behemoths crash down before you, and another to be inside them, and to feel the speed and crush and beauty all around you. And the danger they bring.

Perhaps the most formidable of all wave photographers is Oahu-based Clark Little, who essentially invented the art form by racing into the Waimea Bay shorebreak by his house with a cheap point-and-shoot camera in a waterproof housing he found on Amazon. That was 2007. A few technical improvements and some thinking and practice later, Little’s work hangs in the Smithsonian and is just out now in a new coffee-table book, “The Art of Waves.”

Most of Little’s images were shot in Hawaii, off Oahu’s North Shore. Images like “Knock Out” (above) almost turn the local sand into jellyfish and the waves into a giant clam. Or consider the jolt of gold and green hurtling into blue feathery fringes in “Shiner” (below) to know what it’s like for time to stop, but also to understand there’s no way to control it.

Photo by Clark Little

For more information about “The Art of Waves,” visit the book page on Clark Little’s site.