Wildlife Photographer of the Year · Finalist 2023
August 2022. Off the islands of Coll and Tiree in the Scottish Hebrides. We were looking for basking sharks.
We'd gone out to look for basking sharks. It was a calm day, good light, the kind of conditions you hope for off the Hebrides in summer. And then, in the space of a few minutes, something else entirely took over.
What built in front of us that afternoon was a super-storm, the kind of storm that for most of my 20 years working at sea you'd expect to see in the tropics, not off the west coast of Scotland. It was the summer of 2022, when the UK recorded temperatures above 40°C for the first time in its history. The record heat mixing with cool Atlantic air had created conditions that simply weren't supposed to exist at this latitude.
"I've spent years on the sea. I'd never seen anything like this storm around the UK. I knew immediately what I was looking at."
The storm built fast. With the swell rising and the boat moving, I had minutes to get into position and frame the shot. I cut off the foreground water and pulled in hard on the wall of cloud and rain driving in from the left, the colours shifting second by second as the light disappeared.
The islands held their position on the horizon as the storm closed in above them, which was crucial to the image. "It grounded the shot in a real place. Without those islands, it could be anywhere. With them, it was unambiguously Scotland, unambiguously Britain, unambiguously 2022."
"I find the image foreboding, and slightly scary. The storm quickly consumed us, but speaking to local people, they're starting to see more strange events on the islands."
Brian W Matthews, August 2022
The image was taken as part of Project 7723, my ongoing documentation of the entire UK coastline, all 7,723 miles of it from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, recording coastal wildlife and the pressures of a changing climate. The storm off Coll and Tiree was one of the starkest moments in that project: a weather event that would once have been exceptional, becoming slowly normal.
"I was happy to have got the image. I was sad about what it meant. That combination of feelings is really what the photograph is about. It's not just a dramatic sky. It's a record of something shifting."
Storm Warning was submitted to Wildlife Photographer of the Year, the world's most prestigious natural history photography competition, run by the Natural History Museum in London. It was selected as a finalist in the Oceans: The Bigger Picture category in 2023, my third time as a finalist in the competition.
The image was exhibited at the Natural History Museum as part of the annual WPotY exhibition, seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors, and later selected to represent British photography at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, in Dubai, displayed under the GREAT Britain pavilion.
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year ceremony takes place every October inside the Natural History Museum in London, one of the most spectacular buildings in the world, the Diplodocus skeleton presiding over the candlelit hall as photographers from around the world gather under the same roof.
I heard that Storm Warning had been selected as a finalist in the Oceans: The Bigger Picture category in summer 2023. It would be exhibited alongside fewer than 100 photographs chosen from over 49,000 entries from 95 countries, one of the most selective natural history photography exhibitions on earth.
It's a black-tie event, your print lit in the gallery, surrounded by photographers you've followed and admired for years. "It's genuinely surreal. You walk past your own print on the wall of the Natural History Museum and have to stop and remind yourself that it's actually there."
The exhibition runs for six months at the Museum, seen by hundreds of thousands of visitors, before touring internationally.
Later in 2023, Storm Warning was selected to represent British photography at COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Dubai, attended by world leaders, heads of state, and over 70,000 delegates from 197 countries.
The image was shown as a large-format wall print inside the UK Pavilion under the GREAT Britain initiative, a government-backed programme celebrating British creativity and culture on the world stage. A panel alongside it told the story: a storm that shouldn't exist at this latitude, created by record-breaking heat, photographed from a small boat off the Scottish coast.
"Being at COP is a different kind of experience. The conversations happening in those rooms are about the future of the planet. Having a photograph from your home waters on the wall, a photograph about what's changing, feels meaningful in a way that's hard to describe."
From a small boat off the Hebrides to the walls of the world's most important climate conference. That journey is, in some way, what the image is about.
A four-minute film following the making of the image: the journey, the project, the climate change story behind it.
Fine art print
Storm Warning
Museum-quality giclée print on Hahnemühle German Etching 300gsm. Hand-signed by Brian. Available in multiple sizes from A3 to large-format. A limited edition signed series is available, ask for details.
Talk & workshop
Storm Warning:
Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss
A 60–80 minute illustrated talk tracing the journey of this image and the 7723 Miles coastal project, from the Scilly Isles to Shetland, from extreme weather at sea to Arctic ice. Available online and in person for camera clubs, schools, wildlife trusts, universities, and corporate events. I've delivered this talk at COP28 and to thousands of people across the UK.
Ongoing project
Storm Warning is one moment in a larger story. Project 7723 follows the entire UK coastline, all 7,723 miles, documenting coastal biodiversity, the people who protect it, and the pressures of a changing climate. From the Scilly Isles to Shetland.
