Hiroshige was a famous Japanese wood block painter who specialized in painting coastal scenes around Japan's island's, capturing the beauty and shape of the waves.
Below I will list a few tips to help you capture the perfect wave photograph.
1. Use a tripod or a mono pod, but do now tighten too much,
allow for smooth movement around your scene.
2. Use a telephoto lens, 18-200 on a cropped sensor or a 70-300
on a full frame camera with image stabilization if possible.
3. Shoot with an aperture of around f/8.0
4. Shoot with a shutter speed of between 1/800 - 1/1000 to freeze
the wave and retain details in the shape and show detail
in individual droplets.
5. Shoot with a shutter speed of 1/2 - 1/4 sec to blur the water
movement but still keep detail in the flow.
Hiroshige, check out his images on the net for some composition ideas.
6. Expose for the highlights in the scene, so as not to blow out
or loose detail in the bright parts of the waves/scene.
7. Photograph the waves back-lit by the low early/evening sun.
8. Shoot from a low prospective to emphasis the size of the
waves.
9. Focus, use Ai servo to allow the focus to change as you track
the wave.
10. Set your ISO to auto.
11. Set the drive mode on your camera to continuous.
12. Set your white balance to daylight or cloudy depending on
your scene, this will ensure the same colour temperature
throughout all your photographs.
13. Shoot side on to preserve details, depth and contrast in the
scene.
14. Shoot in the morning or evening.
15. Use a polarizing filter to cut through glare and reflections in
the water to see through to the sea bed, note using a
polarizing filter will reduce your shutter speed by 2 stops.
16. Make sure you have plenty of memory cards as you will be
recording multiple photographs with each wave.
17. Shoot from and elevated position to isolate single waves, or
shoot from a low position to use the wave as foreground
interest to a more detailed scene, note if shooting from a low
position stay back from the sea/rock edge or you and your
camera gear could get wet.
Zoom out and view the scene through your view finder, note where waves are being birthed, where they crescent and where they finally crash. Then when you have a good idea of the wave action in the scene on front of you, zoom out and follow a birthing wave, watch it as it starts peak, zoom in and stay in front of the
cresting wave, then press the shutter just before the wave finally crash, keep your finger on the shutter to record the wave action from cresting to crashing.
Convert to black and white in post processing to enhance the shape and details of the wave.