Photographer Roland Kraemer is one that we love to say plays with different ways of bending reality. During the pandemic, he made the Strange Series, which captivated us in many ways. And he often finds himself in love with the waves of the ocean. His most recent photographs to be featured here channel that same energy but slow it down in a way that the best videographers for the BBC’s Planet Earth could only dream of. Best of all, he didn’t need to travel far for these images.
All images by Roland Kraemer. Used with permission. For more, please check out his website and Instagram @thatbloom.
This series, called Dark Tide, was shot along the west coast of France. Specifically, he caught fascinating movement at the estuary — because of the way the tides were shifting around, there was a constant flow of water coming from the ocean. “I usually don’t approach my photographic work with a clear idea on what the final result should be,” he tells the Phoblographer. “I often decide on an overall location and then go with the flow on what I find intriguing in my surroundings.” As the water flowed over the sand dunes, he didn’t have any idea what he’d capture. But he knew that it would be magical.
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Roland’s work is almost monochromatic. We say in the way that there aren’t often lots of colors in the scenes. With the exception of the Strange series, color isn’t also all that important. However, the moment surely is and color adds a special feeling to the images.
“I found it fascinating how visually perceived standing waves turned into these dark liquid paintings during the photographic process, which inspired me to call the series ‘Dark Tide’,” he tells us. Roland continues to tell us that his work is simply a reflection of the places he visits. He loved the mountains and that’s why so much of his work revolves around those places.
Here’s more from Roland.
Over the last few years, I did several trips to the Spanish and French part of the Atlantic Ocean coast-line to go surfing. During that time, I developed a deep personal appreciation for the ocean. I started analyzing the movement of the water and searching for interesting patterns in the sand and the stones at the beach, which resulted in a handful of photographic projects, with ‘Dark Tide’ being one of them.
The ocean and the beaches are ever-changing places. The uniqueness of the compositions I find and photograph there, is something I find artistically very interesting.
Water in all its shapes and forms is a key element of my photographic work, which I plan to keep on exploring and developing in future projects.
Roland Kraemer
These images are obviously long exposures made at just the right time and with the right amount of work done to get them to look exactly this way. Some of it also looks like intentional camera-shake; which would be a really cool element to add to long exposures like this.