Inside the water: photographing waves from within

Nick Pumphrey has been photographing the Cornish sea since his teens – here, he reflects on what keeps drawing him back.

First light in the sea is, and always will be, prime time for me. In the morning, you feel the cold in the air and in the water. The light is blue, and the sounds are soft and minimal. Those initial photographs hold all of these qualities – the cold, the quiet, the calm. The surface mirrors what is above, with pinks, purples and reds bleeding into an endless palette of blue.

Birdsong and flight precede the rising sun, while the skin of the sea, dragged and torn by the early wind, keeps my attention sharp as the first light dances and dazzles across the surface towards me. I watch through the lens as the scene urges me to press the shutter. It is in these moments that time stands still – total immersion in the present, where my experience, my photography and the natural world merge into one. A moment that can never be repeated. Something real and fleeting – and entirely worthwhile.

No two waves break the same, even at the same spot – I remember reading this in an Australian surfing magazine as a teenager. Up until that point I hadn’t really considered it, but it has always stayed with me. A reminder that the sea is a subject of constant change. I started surfing at the age of 11, and with that came the world of surfing magazines. I can still recall the excitement of flicking through the pages and losing myself in the incredible photographs that filled them; images of the most breathtaking waves and far-flung destinations, from the Philippines to Indonesia. They felt unreal, like another world entirely – one that completely captured my imagination. I recognise now that those early years of wonder and passion laid the foundation of who I am today.

I never anticipated that photographing the ocean would become so magnetic. Like most people learning to use a camera, I simply pointed it at whatever was in front of me. But as time passed and my relationship with surfing deepened, so did my connection to photography in the sea. In the early days I was focused on observing and capturing surfing. At first, that meant telephoto lenses and shooting from various angles on land – a pursuit that, if I’m honest, often felt frustrating. Standing around in the heat, waiting and hoping for a moment worth keeping. Everything changed when I got my first water housing. If land photography was two-dimensional, water photography was three-dimensional. Suddenly, I was inside the experience, right alongside the surfers. They were coming straight at me, above me, around me. Everything became exciting, a thrilling, ever-shifting challenge.

Surfing is unique in that the wave dictates what the surfer does in the moment. It is a series of spontaneous reactions to shape-shifting energy, with no time for thinking, only muscle memory and years of experience in full flow. I think about this often when I’m out there, floating in the vast expanse that makes it all possible, witnessing this particular dance and, at the same time, trying to capture these fleeting moments within a moving canvas. It is magic on many levels.

Photographing waves in the sea comes with many lessons, and learning to surrender is one of the greatest. The sea moves and I move with her – going with the flow, allowing my subject and canvas to dictate my composition and position. I swim beneath breaking waves with my eyes wide open, searching for the space between the seabed and the turbulence above. Then, I emerge through the surface, reposition, compose and focus on the next wave as it approaches in all its magnificent, dancing form.

Finger on the shutter, no time to think – only experience and intuition guiding the decision to take the photograph, or not. If I’m not in the right spot, there is comfort in knowing the next wave might bring me there. It is a strange and gratifying pursuit, one that reminds me of the joy that lives within creativity and nature, and how letting go of expectation opens up the possibility of something truly magical passing through.

The ocean has given me everything. It is where I can be still, and where I can give all of my energy. It has shaped me into the person I am today and given me lifelong friendships – from the young just finding their way in the water to the elders who are still out there. I love sharing this space with them all. Meeting like-minded people is part of the experience. Without the sea, I would most probably fall apart. It keeps me sane and grounded in a wild world, gives me creative purpose, and keeps my body moving. The ocean is there for us all – I think we know this, deep down. Everyone is drawn to the sea, whether to be in it or beside it. We are all, in some way, fascinated by it.

It has guided me through many stages of my life. In the spring of 2020, during a particular time of confusion, fear and change, I turned to the sea. Every morning I would rise before dawn, pull on a wetsuit, grab my flippers and camera housing, and enter the water for blue hour through to just after sunrise. No rules, no brief – only the laws of nature and the act of being present, reacting to whatever came through the lens. Over those weeks I learned that I could exist fully in the moment, that I didn’t need to overthink. Moments of fleeting magnitude were in constant flux, each one giving way to the next in an unbroken continuum of creative possibility. I called this practice Dawn Days of May.

What surprised me was how contagious this movement became. Locally, a small crew began joining me, growing steadily over that month. And because I was sharing images and thoughts on social media, the responses kept coming – messages, comments, all of them warm and full of energy. It struck me as quietly extraordinary that something so instinctive and personal for me was landing so meaningfully with others. It proved how powerful our actions can be, even the simple ones.

Everything is energy, and the ocean is full of it. Storms pass and create waves – small at first, but over distance and time build into organised swells. Waves, as we see them, are essentially energy made visible. I love this idea. When I point my camera towards them I am in awe, in my happiest place.