Portfolio: Ray Collins

The waves suggest might, and power, and force, but most of all they suggest a world that is at best indifferent to human pursuits. There may be conventional beauty, or not. There may be something to ride, but it’s unlikely. Rather, the ocean that Ray Collins sees is simply an element forming and reforming itself, inchoate then gone, in a cycle that never ends.

Maybe it’s because the Australian spent most of his adult life working as a coal miner, picking up photography only after a knee injury forced him off the job until he healed—a vision focused by tunnels. Maybe it’s because he’s color blind and sees things different—shape over object. Or maybe it’s just a simple fascination with the passing of energy in a place he feels most at home.

“All I know,” said Collins, “is I walk blindly forward and the ground appears under my feet as I go.”