'When the Sea Comes Knocking'

When The Sea Comes Knocking
How much you squeeze (compress) a material before it fails is called Compressive Strength.
How much you pull or stretch a material before it breaks is called Tensile Strength.
How hard one must try to cut a material before it fails is called Shear Strength.
Concrete and steel both have high compressive, tensile and shear strength. Put them together you get
reinforced concrete, it expands and contracts at almost the same rate in ever changing temperatures.

This is why it is the most widely used material in construction today.

Breakwaters, bulkheads, armoring, revetments and seawalls are often made from reinforced
concrete, built parallel to the shoreline, to serve as barriers to prevent wave attack, in the hope of reducing
or even halting costal / shore erosion.

I have always had an interest in the science of building materials, and with this exhibition of
photographs I am not trying to make a case for or against such defenses, but as a photographer my work is, and has
often been concerned with how we shape our environment and how time and the elements reshape it.

The following set of images show what happens when the sea meets one of the world’s strongest man-made materials.