Ink On Ice, Mýrdalsjökull

• Photographer
  Nicholas Dunn

Wind-blown volcanic ash draws dark ink lines across the snow-streaked skin of Mýrdalsjökull. Melt and drift press the ash into rings and ripples; the scalloped edge reads like a coastline on a map. Small pits and pale pools dot the surface, turning the glacier into a black-and-white sketch made of dust, snow, and slow ice. The scene is almost purely abstract—cartography, calligraphy, and geology at once—held for a moment before weather and movement erase the lines and write new ones.

Nicholas Dunn began photographing at age ten, inspired by his father and grandmother. From the Kansas plains to landscapes abroad, he developed a style rooted in abstraction, where nature reads like drawing or design. By eighteen, his work earned international recognition, including multiple honors at the International Photography Awards with a second place in Architecture/Historic. Through fire, water, ice, and land, Nicholas seeks to reveal the patterns and fleeting visions etched by the earth itself.