Day #3!! You know that feeling you
get when you wake up way too early? I’m
not talking about the swollen eyes, or the dry mouth, or the massive yawn you
are about to produce. I’m talking about
deep-down, low-grade feeling of nausea.
Over the years, and certainly in my training, it’s happened to me a
number of times. And with that feeling
comes the cold – this is part of our natural circadian rhythm – a natural low
in our cortisol levels. As we wake up,
this naturally corrects itself, making us feel better.
So after taking the redeye flight,
and have a full and fulfilling day of photography, we woke up the next day,
something like zero-dark-thirty, to photograph the sunrise. Hey, we were there for the photos right? We scrambled to get the kids out of bed and
dressed. We got our multilayers of
clothes on. We gathered all the camera equipment. We met in the lobby. Not surprisingly, Thor was already there,
dressed, the car was warm. This guy was
a pro. And then we looked outside. Blizzard.
Gale force winds. Why didn’t we
look outside from our hotel room? Or
come to the lobby for a peek? Thor was
on his phone and looking at the weather.
Even Thor decided to bag the sunrise.
We were sad, but I can tell you, everyone was more than a bit happy to
go back to sleep for an hour!
Lesson #3. When you are approaching pristine scenery, be
respectful of the next photographer (or viewer). That means don’t just walk right up and leave
footprints or tracks in the snow or mud, etc.
Go around, approach your subject from the side. Leave the scenery intact! This is probably good advice for any
traveler, or adventurer, or nature lover, or ANYONE WITH ANY COMMON SENSE! We used this technique many times during the
trip. Here we used it too – started from
afar, and worked our way up to the subject.
“I don’t like (crowds of) people. I mean I don’t like a lot of
people. I like being with a few people.”
-Thor
We started the morning at Dagverðará which was just a few moments from our hotel. We once again focused on using a minimalist
composition strategy. In the first
picture, there was enough definition from the unspoiled road to get some lines
leading up to the abandoned farm. The
sky was the king however, with light at the horizon, patches of blue sky, and
ark clouds. It’s also pretty cool to see
how we both approached the farm, and then retreated, leaving the pathway to it
pristine. Shots were taken with all 3
cameras. In one of them, you can see
that the thick snowflakes were visible and added to the depth of field. It was so peaceful here. We didn’t have to like people 😇.
We reached the Western Shore! In grand fashion! Admittedly, this was a harrowing drive. Basically, we drove off road, in more than a
foot of snow, over rocky terrain, tracing previous tracks. I think there was a road there – Thor did
mention it a time or two. So we did it
again. Got out of the van. Gathered our gear. Reviewed wind conditions and tripod safety, and walked out onto the edge of a cliff!
So here is the progression. See Kiran
taking this shot from the safety of land?
Yes, he is far from the edge! And
he gets off this shot!!
Thor says, “that’s
not the angle you want to get, come with me!!”
Seems treacherous, but it’s not! Look, Sunita came out this far! Hahaha! Then I say, “we need to get out
farther to get the shot!” Now we are
talking. So we go out further. And Boom!
Look at this viewpoint!
Not
satisfied, I turn around…with an ultra-wide angle lens, you really do need to
get to the edge or the foreground takes over.
So here we go again. The reason I
am kneeling is because I didn’t want to stand.
I’m not scared you’re scared! By the way, check out Thor – he is standing
and a foot closer to the edge…Worth it!
We
did manage to walk up to the lighthouse itself.
There was a little walkway near it.
The wind here was brutal though – head on, probably 30mph and
constant. You can see the wind in this picture.
I was bracing the tripod up against a railing to make this work.
We
could not be outdone by the lighthouse and the seascape, so we worked our way back
on the path towards the beach. Not just
any beach. On Skarðsvík
Beach, the western shore of Iceland bekons the North Atlantic. There is a very interesting effect that goes
on here. Once again, we employed Lesson
#3 – take pictures as you approach, and try to leave the landscape undisturbed
for the next people. The boys did their
part too, taking some intimate landscapes and action shots. Really quite amazing. We started here, with what I like to call
the perfect beach. Totally flat, beautiful sand. No one around. Serene blue water (yes, very cold, but serene)
as far as you can see. If you chose to
look around, you were greeted with more vistas of rocky beach meeting serenity.
Yes we started out in the dry part
of the beach. We first approached some
rocky features, which made for very interesting leading lines in the sand mixed
with black lava. The rivulets were a
combination of sea water from the front with meltwater coming down off the
glacier. No way to truly describe the
effect…
As we continued to approach the
beach, the real magic began. It’s not
entirely obvious how far out we went, even from the picture below. Suffice it to say it was about a ¼ mile off
to the left, and the conditions were ideal.
Just at the edge of the surf, the mixture of sand and black lava became
surreal. It was almost like looking at
granite patterns. Always changing. Iridescent.
Moving on. That’s what we do. We find a beautiful place. Unload a bunch of gear. Weather the weather. Get cold hands, and faces, and bodies. Take a boatload of pictures. And then move on to the next beautiful
location. They kind of come out of
nowhere around here. For example. Just off the highway, maybe a mile or so up
the hill, is an isolated church. Ingjaldshóll
has it’s own claim to fame – apparently Christopher Columbus visited these
grounds. The other really cool part of these images is that we got our first
good look at the glacier Snæfellsjokull in the background. Solitary.
Simplistic, if not minimalistic. Nice
cloud patterns emerging with deep gray clouds at the horizon contrasting with the
virgin snow. Leading lines in the tracks of snow on the road…
There is
something about living in a place. And having
an eye for pictures and places. Thor
never really revealed his hand – he had his ideas, and stops in mind. But other than the big ones, we never had a
clue where he was going to stop. So when
he turned off the main road and started climbing into the mountains on Snæfellsnesvegur,
who knew what was going to happen? We were
teleported from the rock seascape to a thousand or so foot elevation. Driven snow.
Rocky peaks. And the clouds…this
is minimalistic. Nothing to see at all
except the contrast. There were a few
times I asked Thor to stop the car so I could grab a picture or two. This was one of them.
We
came to this place on the side of the road.
The snow was a few feet deep up here, and there was a flattened out
parking space for maybe one or 2 trucks. There was a family unloading a snow mobile
next to us. And in the middle of a snowy
meadow was a solitary red hut. No
tracks. No one had been there. What is it for? Why was it built? Even Thor didn’t know. But we took a lot of pictures. The clouds were behaving too, and even in the
middle of the day, we had great light!
Not
surprisingly, Thor had planned the main event for the end of the day. We came back down to the shore, and continued
our round about the peninsula. I was
taking the occasional picture our of the car, and I saw a cool looking
mountain. Solitary, just against the
ocean. Not really distinctive in shape,
but it had presence.
Kirkjufell! The most photographed mountain in the
world! It’s a trapezoid? Really? Haven’t you seen all the pictures all
over Instagram? How can this be. Honestly, I was feeling a bit gypped! And as we came around to the other side, it’s
true self was revealed. It is a
triangle! These were some tough pictures
to make, however. The mountain was
bathed in bright light. The waterfalls
were in shadow. The surrounding area was
also blown out. There was no good way to
get an exposure, even in HDR. So we shot
Kirkjufell alone – using Ansel Adams style of black sky…and waited. The shadows extended across the foreground,
and I was able to perform a reasonably long exposure with various ND and GND
filters to capture this scene. It’s
ok. It’s iconic. It’s probably not going up on my wall…
Oh
yes! In order to get these compositions,
we did need to get pretty close to water’s edge. Especially for that lovely teardrop shaped
foreground element. And comes Lesson
#4. When you are out in snow-covered
land, and you see a teardrop shaped foreground element like this, it is very
possible that there may be snow-covered water, in this case ocean, just
below. I found it! Up to my ankle! Drenched to the bone! I was surprisingly warm for the next hour or
so, but it did eventually catch up to me.
We spent that night getting friendly with the hairdryer…
One
last stop. Are you friggin’ kidding
me? I was cold, my foot was wet, my boot
was soaked. The sun was down. It was cold and windy outside. But here’s the thing. As the sun set, the sky cleared, and the
mountains and glacier started to glow. There was just enough sunlight left
glistening off the tops. There was this
eerie presence. On the way back, Thor
had planned to take Snæfellsnesvegur anyway, and drive by that red hut
again. You see where I’m going with this
right? So we stopped. I put on my cold wet boot, no sock this
time. Got out with the tripod, and took
a handful of these shots. You can see
some star trails if you look closely as I was doing some reasonably long
exposures. And THEN we went back to the
hotel.
Condensation. We were shooting in the cold. There was high humidity. We were moving from the cold to the warm
humid hotel. Guess what? Condensation!
That’s right. Dripping from the
camera. Before leaving, I had bought
some super large Zip-Lock bags, and put a few large (60gm) bags of dessicant in
them. You know the “do-not-eat” stuff
you get in all kinds of packages? That. Anticipating this, I was supposed to put the cameras in these bags while still outside, then
walk into the hotel with them and let them warm up inside the sealed bags. That way, the condensation could accumulate outside the bags and not touch the
cameras. Well I forgot. And I needed to get to my memory cards to do
a backup (see below). So naturally, I scrambled
– got the cameras wiped off, shoved them in the bags, sealed them with the bags
of dessicant, and waited 20 min or so for them to warm up. I also took out the memory cards and left
them in the bag so they would warm up faster.
Then I snuck out the memory cards after 5-10 minutes (I will cover
working with multiple Lightroom catalogs in the next chapter, and backing up in
the chapter after that).
So off to sleep! We have an early morning ahead and hope that
I am better rested in anticipation!
