One witness — and documenter — of this trend is Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Kevin Cooley, who has spent the last decade capturing images of fire — both wild and controlled. The photographs are a visual statement about “our desire to control nature.”But lately, Cooley finds himself drawn to a different element, with lower risks. At the same time, California was in the middle of an extreme drought, which sparked his interesting in photographing water. Using flashlights, strobe lights and even drones, Cooley takes long exposure photos of the ocean that illuminate the tides, and ebb and flow of the current, he said. Kevin Cooley looks off into the sunset at Thousand Steps Beach in California, assessing the lighting for his evening photography session of the ocean.

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Persons: —, Kevin Cooley, ”, Cooley, He’s, we’re, Kevin Cooley's, Kevin Cooley Cooley, ” Cooley, Kevin Myers, CNN “, “ Organizations: Los Angeles CNN —, UN, CNN Locations: Los Angeles, California, Colorado, Arizona