Chaos of a Sandur

Sandur – the plain at the foot of a glacier built from sediments interwoven with thousands of meltwater river branches. Endless forms and variations. One of my favorite (if not the favorite) feature of the Icelandic landscape.

We arrived at this place in the middle of a great sunset, and first had a color image in my mind. But ended up with black and white as it conveys a cleaner message this way. This is an occasion when color distracts and confuses.

Chaos of a Sandur

Chaos of a Sandur

Taken with the Canon 5DS R and Zeiss Otus 1.4/55. The wind was strong, so I used ISO 400 to shorten shutter speed as much as possible, weighed the tripod down and used my body as a wind breaker in front of the camera and tripod.

Layers

It’s eye-opening to experience how my relation to Iceland evolves over time. I’m here for the fifth time, now spending the entire summer in the country, but haven’t seen the island for a decade. And it has changed a lot. And I also changed a lot.

It was hard to forget the Iceland I had in my fond memories and let myself see what’s in front of me. But once I began to free myself from the past, image making started to get rewarding again.

And the island is still capable of delivering great scenery, just in slightly different ways. Just like the one below.

Layers

Layers

This image was captured at a nice geothermal area – well, it was much better ten years ago, before an explosion wiped most of the features. But this time we went there chasing the reddish glow on the horizon, not the geothermal stuff.

Taken with the Canon 5DS R and Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 2/135.

Dark Mountains

It’s not over until it’s over – this is a golden truth in photography. We were driving the whole afternoon for nothing. It rained, and the waterfall at our original destination wasn’t in its top shape. But on the way home we literally ran into this majestic scene. Took roughly 50 frames, exploring different compositions, and couldn’t be happier with the results.

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Dark Mountains

Captured with the Canon 5DS R with the Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 2/135 lens. Yes, one must bring a telephoto to Iceland.

Roadside Sunset

Sometimes great photographic opportunities present themselves in unexpected situations. But as the saying goes, luck favors the prepared.

We were driving back to Reykjavík a few days ago when a colorful sunset started to unfold in front of us. We stopped at the first gas station, pulled out my iPhone with the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder to look for an image. A few minutes later I stepped out of the car with a big smile – knowing that the image I’m going to shoot will work. Just had to take it properly.

Roadside Sunset

Roadside Sunset

Out came the tripod, the Canon 5DS R, the magnificent Zeiss Apo Sonnar T* 2/135, as well as the 11″ MacBook Air. With 50 megapixels it’s essential to check for distractions on the image – in this case I had to exclude the fence that ran across the lower border which escaped my attention when I set up the shot through the camera’s viewfinder. But once I fired up Kuuvik Capture and took a test shot, it became clearly visible on the notebook screen. A quick framing adjustment, and just had to wait for the best colors.