The Great Wave, Sète [Grande Vague - Cette]

The vividly contrasting clouds, the motion of the crashing waves against the shore, all captured in a moment of photographic brilliance. Gustave Le Gray’s 1857 seascape captured the Mediterranean port of Sete like it had never been captured before— quickly making it a masterpiece in photographic history.

At a time when photographers were limited by the chemistry of the photographic process, Gray managed to properly expose the landscape and sky in a single shot. He did this by taking two photographs, one exposed for the sky and the other for the sea, then printing them on the same sheet of paper.