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| Skógafoss |
The flight from Frankfurt to Reykjavik brought us in late in the midst of a snow storm. I was pumped. Dropping down from the clouds in the midst of a blizzard was the perfect way to begin a trip to a place I've been fascinated by long before it hit everyone else's radar when the volcano blew in 2010. To be honest, I'm fascinated by arctic locales in general. If I had my way and endless funds, we'd hit Greenland, Nunavut, and the granddaddy of them all- Antarctica. The imagery and intensity of polar deserts, mountains, glaciers, basically places that are really cold and can kill you without too much work have been a fixation of mine since childhood. I'm not sure why, maybe because I'm attracted to the perfect forms of ice and snow or maybe it's because these places aren't for people and places like that are an introverts dream. Anyway, I'd happily take a take trip to a polar wasteland over a beach every time.
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| Svinafelljokull Glacier |
Well, Iceland is obviously is not quite as an extreme choice as Antarctica or as difficult to access as Greenland, and it sits just south of the Arctic Circle. It's just as modern as the rest of northern Europe, has a couple of airports, and the tourist trade is booming. We chose it because it's the easiest to access from where we are, because its unique geology makes it unlike any other spot on earth, and because it's on the edge of becoming a travel cliche (I'll get to that in another post). We decided to go over the Easter holiday because it sat at the tail end of the Winter season and that meant we could participate in the colder tours and, if we were lucky, catch the Aurora Borealis. From the get go, I planned this to be an intro visit. I have every intent to return as soon as possible. Iceland is one of those places that hooks you in and there's nothing you can do but start planning the next visit. It's inevitable.
Since we were coming at the end of Winter, we decided to do something that we've never done on a trip before- sign up with a tour service. Normally we'd rent a car and do our own thing, but this is Iceland in Winter and growing up in Northeast Ohio you learn to respect what Winter can throw at you. It's one thing to drive around Cleveland in a flash snowstorm, it's a whole other thing to get caught out in the Icelandic countryside. Plus, we wanted to participate in a few activities you have to have guide for- glacier hiking and such. So, after doing quite a bit of research I decided to go with Extreme Iceland. We signed up for two tours with them, but for this post I'll just talk about the first one which filled the first two days of the trip.
Signing up with a guided tour brings a lot of advantages over just renting a car and consulting a book. Guides can tell you things that books never do, and the great thing about all the guides we met in Iceland is that they really love talking about their country. Heck, I would too. Guides also take the guesswork out of the trip. You can just sit back and take in the scenery, hit the high points, and get a sense of the land without having to worry about finding the next gas station, the weather forecast, and all the other logistical headaches. But, taking a guided tour also has its disadvantages. First of all, unless you can hire a private guide, you're going to be with a group. That can be cool because it's a chance to meet some new people, but it can also be a pain in the neck since some of those people may be, well, a pain in the neck. The other downside, and this one is huge for photographers, you aren't in control of the schedule. This is something you accept immediately, of course, but it's still frustrating when you are out there trying to get a shot and you only get 30 minutes at the location. But, as I said, this was an introduction trip, so I knew from the onset that I wasn't going to come home with a ton of work and that it wasn't going to be an ideal shooting situation. That still didn't prevent the occasional groan when we'd disembark our bus on a beautiful spot in the absolute worst glaring light possible.
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| Inside the infamous mini bus |
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| The Icelandic landscape speeds by outside the bus windows |
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| Horse drive, seen by bus. |
Our guide, Gunnar, picked us up from our hotel in Reykjavik early on our first day and we spent probably about an hour in the city picking up the rest of the group. By the time we headed out of the city our Mercedes minibus had about 20 tourists. Probably the only negative thing I can think of about this tour was that mini bus. It was the most uncomfortable vehicle I've ever taken a long distance drive in since the time I made a torturous 4 hour journey in an Egyptian taxi. Really, the problem was the bus itself. It had ridiculously tall seats that you couldn't see over and zero leg room, worse than economy seat on an airplane. Between all the coats and bags and people it felt like we shoved in a sardine can. I can't imagine what a claustrophobic person would go through on that bus. Anyway, despite it's lack of transport comfort, the tour met our needs and then some.
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| Seljalandsfoss |
The first day we stopped at several locations. The first were waterfalls, Seljalandsfoss and Skógafoss. Iceland's waterfalls are some of its most popular tourist attractions, and for good reason. They're very impressive. These two are located right off the main ring road, so they're a must for all the buses and car rental tourists. According to our guide, he had never seen so many people at the falls before. Iceland, I think, is going to start facing some facts about its tourist trade. Anyway, both of the falls were packed, crazy packed. We were given 30 minutes at Saljalandsfoss. That's 30 minutes to walk to the falls from the parking lot, find a decent spot to set up, meter, put on filters, teach random tourists how to operate their own cameras, and, finally, take the shot. Thirty minutes feels like fifteen. For the next two days, my husband and I were running. I'm a landscape photographer, I was going to come home with some decent landscapes from Iceland, even if I only had 30 minutes at a time to do it! This shot of Seljalandsfoss above is the first I took on the trip. I was able to get one more and then it was time to head back to the bus.
I decided I was only going to use the X-T1 on this trip. There was no point in bringing a camera that wasn't weather sealed. I shot 90% of the trip with the 16-55mm lens. I think this is the perfect X Series combination for travel to challenging locations. That combo is totally weather sealed and 16-55mm range can pretty much get you whatever you're after. I threw the 10-24mm lens in the bag, just in case I needed a super wide angle, but I only switched over to it a couple of times. I shot most of the first two days on a tripod (trusty Brian) with a 10 stop ND filter. Besides the visual advantage of smoothing out water and clouds, ND filters are a huge help in tourist spots. People (usually) move around a lot. Sometimes they all blur out of the shot, but usually they blur just enough that I can remove the ever present pink jackets and garish ski pants in post without too much work. This shot above was taken much further away on our hustle back to the bus, but you can see the crowd of people around the base of the falls. By using the ND filter I was able to remove all of them.The next falls, Skógafoss, was more of a challenge. We were given 40 minutes at this one and I used every second. At this falls, you can climb up above it, but we've climbed a lot of stairs in our lives and we didn't have time to do that and get a photo.
This was the first angle we went for because there were less people nearby. I obviously used the filter here again, but I didn't remove the people so you could get a sense for how many were around at this location. Take particular notice of the two in black on the far left. I wasn't real keen on this spot, so we relocated closer to the river. The rainbow caused by the falls' mist was more noticeable from the new angle and I wanted something a little more interesting in the foreground than the stones.
This is the final shot, after I've removed all the people. I took about 15 usable long exposures. Other shots were ruined because someone stepped right in front of me, or were standing so close to the side that I couldn't cleanly remove them in Photoshop. Normally, even in a populated area like this it will take several exposures in order for me to capture a clear moment of every spot in the frame. It is easy to cut people out of dark areas, but I wanted the actual data of the water and the rainbow to work with. I felt they were just too delicate to recreate with a clone stamp. Remember those two folks in black from the first shot above? They ended up being why it took 40 minutes to get one image of this location. They didn't move. Well, they moved, but just enough to make them unusable. And, they were smack over a good portion of that rainbow. If they had stood perfectly still, then I could have left them in, nice outlines of people in the center of a beautiful scene. But, since they, of course oblivious to my artistic needs, moved around a little, hugging and kissing, they just created an irritating black blob. So, we stood there waiting and waiting until FINALLY they moved over just 4 feet and I could get that last chunk of the image. Just as I was about to get a second exposure with them out of the way, they moved right back to where they had been! Thankfully, that one shot I got had what I needed. I combined the 15 different exposures in Photoshop to get the scene above. Only took half a day! Whew! Of course, I wouldn't come to this location at that time of day necessarily, but when you're on a tour you have to improvise.
Just when I thought tourists were going to be the big hurdle, we headed to the black sand beach of Reynisfjara. The weather changed dramatically from the nice sunshine and rainbows to a gusty, dark skied, storm. Reynisfjara is known for its black sand and basalt columns. I will always, always remember the wind.
I've been in some high winds before, but nothing to the degree of this. Sand was blowing everywhere, seaweed was flying through the air, and I'm pretty sure a small child was lifted off her feet at one point. It was incredible, a demonstration of the devastating power of nature. There would be no tripod work here. I could barely stand still. We had 30 mins here, but with the weather being as it was, I couldn't see remaining much longer anyway. All shots had to be taken downwind, since spray off the ocean and sand would hit the lens if facing in the other direction. Even though it wasn't at all conducive for photography, I think this was my favorite moment from the first day- leaning against the wind.
From there we headed pretty rapidly to the famous Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, spotting some reindeer running along side the road on our way. It was the end of the day, and the clouds had moved in pretty heavily. The lagoon beach was fairly crowded though, and it was clearly THE spot for time lapse shooters that day. It was difficult to find a patch of beach that wasn't occupied, and even after we staked a claim to a small bit, we still had to defend it. I'm not sure why some people think it's ok to step in front of someone with a tripod, but I'm pretty sure there's a specific corner of Hades waiting for them. But, we had 45 mins here, so no need to run for a change.
This was my favorite location of the trip. I love the forms the glacial ice takes and could have happily spent hours and hours in the soft light shooting the bits that had washed up on the rocky shore. It was an otherworldly place, and the epitome of that polar beauty and starkness I have been fascinated with. This was exactly the sort of location I was hoping to have access to. To top it off, quite a few seals were hunting in the lagoon. They were too far out to capture with the camera, but it was very moving to watch these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat amongst the ice.
From there we went to our hotel and enjoyed a nice evening chatting with some of our fellow travelers and guide over lamb burgers and reindeer tartar. The next morning we headed back to the lagoon and I think we had about an hour there again. The morning was already quite advanced and the sun was directly overhead, but I was able to shoot quite a bit and had a blast not only photographing the ice, but finally having a chance to take it in. I would have killed to have gotten there at sunrise, but to have some more time there at all was fantastic.
From there, the tour became more active. We were to hike the Svinafelljokull Glacier. That involved quite a bit of prep, fitting crampons and such. The tour is very well organized, down to the minute and I can't say enough about how impressed we were by the guides. They have to lead total novices around in one of the most dangerous locations you could lead them. Many of the tourists don't listen or ignore instructions, and it must take a lot of willpower on the part of the guides to prevent smacking them with an ice ax. This glacier has been used in several films- Interstellar, Batman Begins, and Game of Thrones, so obviously it's pretty safe for a glacier. But, you're still walking around on ice, and it wouldn't take too much to screw that situation up. We spent about an hour on the glacier and even after an entire day of being wowed by Iceland's landscape, our jaws were dropping again. It was another spot I could have spent hours in.
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| Fixing ice screws |
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| Preparing to descend into a crevasse, not very far mind you. |
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| Crevasse |
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| The most important thing to have on ice after crampons. I have no idea why this one was lying on the ground. |
After our glacier experience, it was time to head back to Reykjavik, albeit leisurely. On the way we had 20 minutes to walk through moss covered lava fields. Then, it was 30 minutes at Vik and another chance to run, this time to get some shots of the sea stacks.
We made one more stop at another waterfall, which I didn't have much success photographing since we were inside it. It was a great test of the X Series weather sealing though! Then it was back to Reykjavik. We took the long way back, hoping for a break in the clouds to catch the aurora, but no luck this time. It had been overcast for the the past two nights. The third night was forecasted to be clear, so there was still hope. I certainly had plenty of shots I was pleased with, and if those two days were all we had there I think I would have been more than satisfied. We climbed into our beds around midnight feeling like we'd been through a whirlwind.
I, even weeks later, cannot get over the majesty of Iceland. It is a landscape photographer's Mecca. Even though it was during the brown time of winter, it was overcast, and it rained and snowed quite a bit, the beauty was not diminished. In fact, I think in many ways it was heightened. Despite the frustrations that come with taking a group tour, we were very pleased with our decision to join Extreme Iceland. It was certainly a challenge for me to get the images I wanted, but we wouldn't have been able to get to some of these locations in that short amount of time without their help. Getting to walk on a glacier, stand in the blasting wind of the Atlantic, and marvel at the ice sculptures of Jökulsárlón were totally worth being crammed on that bus. Now we have a good idea of where to go on our return trip when we have our own car. We're definitely taking an entire morning at Jökulsárlón!
Please head over to my website to see all the final photographs from the trip. You can find them under Countryside when you click "Browse Galleries" or click "Newest Additions" to go directly to the Iceland gallery!
Next week I'll fill you in on the third day of the trip and tell you what it's like to photograph the Aurora!
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