When Warren Keelan took up the guitar as a youngster he never took lessons.
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He just saw it as something that gave him the opportunity to teach himself how to make music.
When he picked up a camera five years ago he didn’t go and do a course in photography.
He saw the camera as a digital paintbrush and he was drawn to the ocean as his paint palette.
Keelan is a self taught creative who loves the sea.
And his wave images have captured the attention of the world’s best landscape photographers.
Keelan had four of his digital ocean art masterpieces selected among the finalists of the 2015 International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards.
And this week he learnt he placed third in the Photographer of the Year and Photograph of the Year categories.
His image Teal made the top three with works from two other Australian photographers.
An average day for Keelan involves waking before sunrise, hitting the water at 6am and then photographing for two to three hours while being pounded and tossed around by the swell like clothes in a washing machine.
For most photographers, water, salt and movement are usually the greatest enemies. But Keelan has harnessed them all.
He heads home exhausted and hungry for a quick breakfast by 10am.
He then downloads his morning’s work before heading into the gallery where art lovers who buy his work, for home or office, want to meet and ask questions of the man who created them.
By 4.45pm he is heading back to the water to fight his way into a damp wetsuit, ready to do it all again.
He is home for dinner by 8pm and then edits until midnight.
Keelan does not know how long his body can hold up to the routine and pounding punishment it takes every day.
But he doesn’t want to stop dancing in the ocean every day to help him keep his balance and position himself to best harness and freeze a small moment in nature.
Keelan said the best thing about placing third in a competition against all land-based images was it would help get the word out globally about his unique ocean work and build his name internationally.
All four photos will now be published in a book focused on the world’s best landscape photography.
As was the case in 2013 when he was named a winner in the prestigious International Photography Awards in the Nature: Underwater category.
That came a year after he won the Nature: Sunset category of the same awards he has just entered again.
