Ray Collins sees waves and water in a way that most people don’t. Luckily for us he also captures it with his camera. Collins acquired his first camera in 2007 and seems to have stayed in the water with it ever since, focused on capturing all of the different forms of water. Initially he wanted to take snaps of his surfer friends in his native Australia catching rides and enjoying barrels, but instead was enticed by the blue liquid under their boards.

Collins, who is actually colorblind, is able to focus on the patterns and light play in the waves, and pays special attention to the shapes they make against the sky. His unique perspective shows off the grandness and drama of the seascapes. Normal splashes of water are seen instead as incredible peaks on mountains. The front of a wave turns into a deep canyon which sinks to unseen depths. Collins manages to capture the translucency, strength, fluidity, and the unrelenting force of water all at the same time.

His unique style has won him some hefty accolades in just a few years, including 1st Place for ‘Australian Surf Photo of the Year‘ (2015), he was a finalist in the ‘Smithsonian – Annual Photo Contest’ (2015), and also was the winner for the ‘American Aperture Awards’ – Landscape/Seascape/Nature (2015). He has shot campaigns for Nikon, United Airlines, Qantas and National Geographic, and has a new book out called Found At Sea, which a collection of some of his favorite photographs.

You can also see his daily photos on Instagram.

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New York based artist Mindo Cikanavicius photographs portraits of men with foam “facial hair.” Within this series, titled Bubbleissimo, (perhaps making a play on the word “machismo”), the artist distorts the notion of masculinity through a comedic display of the growing obsession with groomed facial hair. His work aims to speak about the fragility and absurdity of what “manliness” means, depicting it as being just as allusive and indefinite as the bubbles meant to represent it.  These works portray the sitters in a sort of kitschy, glamor portrait style, engulfed in one side of sky blue and one side of bubble gum pink, the colors used to denote gendered objects. His series mocks the need to define and portray what it means to be masculine, and, through what seems at first glance to be an overtly serious series, successfully, upon further inspection, invites in a air of making fun of itself. Once it becomes clear that this facial hair is in fact made of bubbles, the work switches from being a strange cataloging of men, to a witty depiction of gender norms. His artist statement notes that “Mindo is focused creating story based unexpected moments with touch of cinematic drama, humor and mystery. His work is a blend of ideas, imagination, observations, experiences and emotions into making intriguing constructed reality photographs.”

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