Fire in the Sky — Hicks Bay Historic Wharf at Dawn, East Cape, New Zealand

The weathered timbers of Hicks Bay's historic wharf curve into a burning Pacific dawn on the East Cape of New Zealand. Magenta and gold ignite the sky as a lone bird crosses the frame, and golden grasses catch the first of the day's light in the foreground. The old wharf — a relic of a working coastal past — stretches toward the open ocean under one of the East Cape's legendary dawn skies. Remote, raw, and rarely photographed, this is New Zealand at its most elemental.