Maelstrom

Oceanic chaos documented in abstract, sculptural form.

In early 2016, Australian photographer Luke Shadbolt spent a month along a remote Pacific coastline, where he documented a series of large storm swells generated by that year’s El Niño event. As the storms hit landfall, 50-foot waves crashed into sheer cliff faces before refracting back toward open ocean and colliding again against incoming swell. The effect of this chaos—the ocean in abstract and sculptural shapes—as Shadbolt has captured in single frames became the book Maelstrom.

The volume offers a perspective in duality—creation and destruction in a single act—and affords the viewer a cursory glimpse of the exchange, cycle, and interdependence between environmental spheres, particularly the ocean. As is the underlying message of these images, all viable eco-friendly options have been used in the creation of this book.