Building an Artificial Wave Making Machine

“The main vision for my work has always been to pursue and learn more about the relationship between water and light.”
I’ve spent so much time analysing and observing nature, just waiting for the right moment to happen where the elements align perfectly, so when Manfrotto presented the idea to me about their “Compose your Vision” concept, I immediately thought; ‘Imagine’ if I could recreate those elements, in a more controlled environment..
All my endeavours seem to start with the world ‘imagine’ and I believe my career has been carved out of pursuing just that. It’s always my imagination that sends me into these tailspin journeys, whether it be to the far corners of the earth in search of the next portfolio shot or those late nights in the studio tweaking lights and angles. Every endeavour always has the common thread of imagining the image that may present itself just around the corner.
This project was certainly no exception, when the idea was born in my minds eye, I couldn’t seem to shake it. “Is it even possible? I kept thinking. But there was only one way to find out, so I began putting pen to paper and designing what I saw in my mind. I had seen waves form, collide and explode so many times in the ocean, so I had a good idea of what was required to generate the movement of the water. I needed to push, pull and contain the waves in an environment that I could control.
So with a background in construction, I set out to acquire the resources and tools I needed to build what was going to be an ‘artificial wave machine’.
Pioneering an idea like this always has its stages of trial and error, because not having an example to go off will inevitably lead you down a winding path of sorts, and will require persistence and a never give up attitude to see your vision through to fruition. More often than not the end result may be very different to what was originally envisioned but often I find the concept evolves and new ideas always emerge along that path of creative pursuit.
Such was the case with my artificial backwash wave, in theory, the forecasted outcome is always embellished with a positive attitude, “It’s going to be amazing” I continually say to inquisitive remarks I get from friends and family as I set out on these quests, and to be honest, it’s also what I have to tell myself on a continual basis in the building and engineering process to convince myself to stay on track, as the friction between the theory and the practicalities in these ideas always presents the most arduous challenges.
Apart from building the contraption and getting all the engineering right, the biggest challenge I faced was actually the timing and the pushing of the waves. It turned out, getting the water to meet in the middle was a real art form in itself and took a lot of practice to get in the groove. On top of that, having my focus right, and my composition right and getting the position of the light right was just a myriad of things to align. You see, water at this miniature scale moves so incredibly fast, too fast to compose in the moment. So I had to anticipate where the wave was going to flick up and how the water was going to behave based on the wave before it.
During the whole process, I found it so fascinating, that in nature there’s all the elements of tide, swell, swell direction and wind and all these things that you have to take into consideration to get the perfect shot, all had their place in this little man made environment.
It ended up being a very fun and extremely educating project. Using the wave machine to recreate the energy of colliding forces, really taught me a lot about the movement and interaction of water and light, which is indeed a valuable end result of any science project.
I am yet to further explore this concept and believe I’m only scratching the surface of what’s possible with shaping water within a studio environment. After this project, I think the next step is to recreate this conception a larger scale, taking what I’ve learnt from this first endeavour and going back to the design phase and really taking the artistic pursuit of shaping water to the next level.
The lesson here, is always being to just start, start your project, put your idea into motion and you will inevitably evolve as a creator by just simply being in pursuit of the vision that you first had in your mind.
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Stay Creative, PT.