Andrew Mulvey

abstractions of the indian ocean

Long exposures in excess of four minutes, graduated neutral density filters, deliberate under and over exposure along with post-processing are used to reduce ocean scenes and amplify their opposing duality.

Applying these techniques at various times of the day, in different conditions and during different times of the year yields unique results. The water is rendered as differently coloured or almost-colourless blocks, the sky filled with gradients of colour that only accrue over the course of a long exposure and a multiplicity of horizons and offings are revealed.

These images simultaneously explore and reveal the fundamental experience of the ocean view in its entirety. Its two parts are rendered almost without perspective, laid out two dimensionally to fully expose the extraordinary yet simple contrast presented by the vast view of nothing but water and air, so different according to the time of day, climatic conditions, the geographical location of the viewer and the seasons.

Gone are the minor details that characterise the ocean and the sky. Instead, each element is reduced to its constituent colours, gradients and varying intensities of reflected and emitted light. None are favoured by occupying the foreground or disapproved by virtue of their distance from the viewer. Instead, all the basic elements of the view are presented with equal importance and force.

Personally, these images express my experience of viewing the ocean. After countless hundreds of hours photographing the ocean, usually by way of long exposures, this is how I see. I am captivated now by the wide expanses of shifting colour that occupy my field of view, perfectly balanced by, yet in contrast with, one another. I find it otherworldly, as if I have been transported to a place never before visited and foreign to us all. It is through my photography that I hope to convey at least some of this experience.