Mateusz Piesiak's Image

Mateusz Piesiak (Poland) braves stormy conditions to watch a glaucous gull soaring above the waves.

Mateusz had come to Iceland to photograph glaciers and the aurora borealis but found himself distracted as a storm rolled in. Struggling to stand upright in the gale-force winds, he used his telephoto lens to record the power of the moment. Unperturbed, a glaucous gull soared effortlessly between the towering waves.

It turned out, despite the fierceness of the onslaught, that the storm had actually barely begun. Weather warnings were issued, and Mateusz huddled in the back of his car for the night. He emerged in the early morning to find that other vehicles had windows broken by flying debris and some had even been thrown into ditches. But to the gull, it was all just weather.

The glaucous gull, named after its pale grey plumage, is one of the largest gull species in the world. They breed along the cliffs and rocky ground of the Arctic coast. It’s predicted that warming temperatures will reduce their range by nearly 50%.