Tag Archives: Iceland

A Photographer’s Voldemort: The Self-Critique

Jul
27
2014
by Dave | 1 Comment

In the two week period I spent travelling along the southern coast of Iceland I took 3136 photographs. This includes 200-300 individual images for stitching together in various panoramas, a number of bracketed shots for HDR images as well as the inevitable ‘click it and hope’ shots. There are also countless shots from the ice along Jokulsarlon beach – getting the sea and ice to form interesting patterns was more an exercise in patience and luck than skill. My task is to distil these 3136 down to 25 photographs for the website: More than that and the gallery would likely feel too big and any less may cause me many a sleepless night about the shots I left out.

It all starts simply enough. The photographs are loaded into Adobe’s Lightroom software and all are given a rating of three stars. As I walk through each image the out-of-focus and otherwise unsalvageable shots get reduce to one star; good images and those with promise get four stars.

Over the past few weeks, between travelling for work and, of course, going to Israel I have managed to get the first pick – the four stars – down to 180 photographs. Yesterday, after 11 hours, I have managed to get second pick to 68. Those 11 hours were also spent processing the photographs and stitching together the panorama shots, some of which have worked out well and some of which not so much. And so on to third pick. The critical analysis of those 68 images. The moment I dread.

No one talks about this aspect of the photographic workflow which is a surprise as it is arguably the hardest. I once asked wildlife photographer Daisy Gilardini about how long she spent processing photographs to which she replied between 60 and 90 seconds. It isn’t much time, but then I suspect that is the point: if an image is good, it won’t need much time to ‘tidy up’. But I feel I asked the wrong question. I should have asked “How do you select those photographs?”

Now, what makes a good image is always going to be an emotive topic and a question with no real answer. Humanitarian photographer David duChemin has long written about the importance of creative ‘vision’ and storytelling in photography and he should know – humanitarian photography has to generate a reaction in the viewer otherwise it has failed. By contrast even if a landscape shot fails to make you immediately pack your bags and get on a plane, at least it can still be pretty.

Many of the photography-related magazines include regular features that interview a notable photographer and ask the usual questions such as how they got involved in the industry. But none, that I have seen at least, ask the photographer to pick an image or two from their portfolio and explain why that selected that image and not one of the others from the same shoot. What was it that drew them to an image above all others? I once brought the idea up on a forum for a well-known UK magazine and was greeted by a wall of silence from both fellow readers and staff alike. But I can’t believe that I am the only one to struggle with self-critiquing work. Perhaps every photographer struggles with self-critique more than they would like to admit and, like Harry Potter’s nemesis, find it easier not to openly discuss the topic in the hope that it will not look their way.

Here is a classic case in point from the second pick of Iceland. Two images from one of my trips to the beach at Jokulsarlon. Can you choose which you prefer?

 

Jokulsarlon Ice #1

Jokulsarlon Ice #1

 

Jokulsarlon Ice #2

Jokulsarlon Ice #2

The problem is I cannot. What I wanted to capture was the essence of the beach: the striking black volcanic sand, the motion of the sea wrapping itself around the icebergs and the limited palette of grey, blue, black and white. Both images do just that. But what now? Where do I go from here?

I am sure that too will learn the art of self-critiquing my work. But, if anyone knows of a site, a magazine or any other resource where photographers show examples of how they self-critique, please let me know.

Oh, and I just realised that my Voldemort analogy may paint photographers as wizards and non-photographers as Muggles. But more worryingly, it implies that I’m Harry Potter. I do not believe this, of course, and I don’t want to live in Harry Potter’s world. For the time being, at least…

 

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The Waiting Game

Jun
19
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

The other day I was talking to someone just getting started in photography and later got thinking about what I have discovered over the past few years and if there was any advice that I could give other than the usual – and obvious – “know how your camera works” or “practice, practice, practice” advice. And there is: Good photographs rarely just happen.

Part of the joy of solo travel is that I can afford to spend lots of time waiting. And waiting. Usually it is for inspiration, or thinking about how to shoot a scene, or the light. But often it waiting for people to get out of the way. Iceland is a great case in point. One of the popular tourist spots along the southern coast is Dyrholaey. It is especially popular with bird watchers as several species, including puffins choose it as their nesting grounds. So, leave it to me to visit during nesting season when, what felt like every bird watcher on the planet, was out on the cliffs keeping a lookout. If that were not enough there is a fantastic black volcanic sand beach there with a cave at the far end and I can understand why people were keen to walk along to the cave and back. I would, usually. But I had this image in my head and it did not include people on cliffs. Or beaches. Or even, as cute as they are, a passing puffin. It just had the landscape.

So I set up the tripod, framed the shot, ran a few test shots to check focus, exposure and the creative look and then waited. For a few hours. The cliff line would clear, but people were still on the beach, or vice versa. Or both were clear, but the clouds had moved in. There was always something not right. I waited so long that the tide came in, changing the images, luckily in a way I liked.

Then it happened: No people, no birds, no grim clouds and an, as if to reward me, an incoming wave. Lovely.

Don't tell her but my mother was right: Patience is a virtue. 4secs, f/13 ISO 100

Don’t tell her but my mother was right: Patience is a virtue.
4secs, f/13 ISO 100

Now yes, I could have cloned people out in post production, but I shoot to print at a metre plus in size and unless you’re really very good, Photoshopping can be spotted. Anyway, you really can’t remove clouds or add waves in Photoshop so getting it right in camera is usually the best course of action. So, my advice is simply that. Good shots don’t just happen – you make them happen.

By changing your viewpoint, or removing the waste bin sitting next to the rustic door, or by picking up rubbish seen in frame. Or simply by waiting.

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ND Filter Example #2

Jun
14
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

Here’s another use of filters in Iceland. But which filter, if any?

Skaftafellsjokull Glacial Tongue

Skaftafellsjokull Glacial Tongue

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Getting Creative With Plastic: ND Filters

Jun
10
2014
by Dave | 1 Comment

 

Holiday season is upon us once again and it’s time to capture some of those memories for sharing with friends and family. But, as good as camera phones are becoming, there comes a point where you realise that, no matter how many editing features they offer, the images they take are not matching up to the ones in the advertising brochures that likely enticed you to the holiday destination in the first place. So, how do you take photographs like the pros?

(At this point in the original draft I wrote paragraphs about creative vision, experience and a whole bunch of other stuff that I arguably know nothing about. But then I realised that it wasn’t really necessary to the point I want to make, so let’s just assume that you’ve managed to find a scene that you want to shoot in a creative way.)

With photography, creativity usually crops up twice. The first time is when framing the shot – the decision as to what to include, what to remove, what depth-of-field and the like. The second time is in the creative control of the available light and even a pro relies on one thing: good light. Without good light, even the most experienced photographer will struggle to produce a good image.

So, to the point of this article: A couple of easy tricks to control light and make photographs a bit more interesting – and certainly a bit more like the ones in the brochure.

Filters

After travelling along the southern coast of Iceland for a couple of weeks in a variety of weather conditions shooting landscapes, I came to rely on one piece of equipment so much so that I would consider it an essential item. In many, many cases it turned a ‘reject’ into a ‘keeper’ and turned a ‘ho-hum’ into a ‘wow’. What is this magical piece of equipment? Why, it is the humble filter.

The clue as to the purpose of a filter is really in the name: To filter. In the case of photography there is only one commodity that can be filtered and that is the light entering through the lens and, perhaps obviously, a filter can only modify or remove light, never add. But, as light is the fundamental component in photography, why would we actively seek to reduce it?

The Light Bucket

If you’re new to photography a simple analogy is probably going to make the rest of this article easier. From the technical perspective, a good photograph usually starts with getting just the right amount of light into the camera and onto the camera sensor, a process resulting in what is usually (but perhaps not accurately) called “a correct exposure”. Too much light and the result is that ‘washed out’ look (over exposure) and too little light results in that ‘taken at night’ look (under exposure). It’s like filling a bucket with water; too much and it overflows, too little and there’s not enough to go around. You have to fill the bucket to the brim, no more and no less.

Plenty of web sites out there use the bucket analogy to discuss exposure in a far better way than I can here, so I’m not going reinvent the wheel. Suffice it to say that there are three, inter-dependent, settings that you can use to control how this bucket is filled and which one you use depends upon the creative look you are after – shutter speed, aperture and ISO (film) speed. Again many articles exist that discuss these, and I may one day write my own.

But sometimes, you need some additional help to realise your creative vision. For me, it was the neutral density filter.

Neutral Density Filters

One of the most useful filters – especially in landscape photography – is the neutral density, or ND filter. Its purpose is to limit the amount of light passing through it in equal amounts across the colour spectrum or, put another way, it limits the light passing through without changing the colour of that light. Using the bucket analogy above, the effect of an ND filter can be looked at in either of two ways:

  • It means that it takes longer to fill the bucket – a longer exposure time.
  • It reduces the amount of light in the bucket for a given exposure time.

Graduated ND Filters

An offshoot of the ND filter – and one far more frequently used – is the ND graduated filter, or ND Grad. It is basically an ND filter that only limits the light on part of the filter.

Little bits of plastic - here the ND and the ND Grad filters - can make a world of difference to the 'look' of the photograph.

Little bits of plastic – here the ND and the ND Grad filters – can make a world of difference to the ‘look’ of the photograph.

On the left we have the ND filters. It may be difficult to tell but each of the three square and round ones are different levels of opaqueness – the more opaque, the longer the exposure time – the most extreme limited the light passing though to a one thousandth of the original light. On the right we have some rectangular ND Grads, again each limiting the amount of light arriving on the part of the camera sensor.

So yes, this magical device is basically a piece of plastic. Already I sense disappointment. But, some examples may help…

 

A Practical Example: ND Filters

Take a look at the following shot:

The unusual black volcanic beach of Reynisfjara

The unusual black volcanic beach of Reynisfjara; 1/45sec @ f/16, ISO 100

It’s a beach shot with a nice, black volcanic beach and the Atlantic Ocean. What I wanted to show was not the detail of the waves crashing against the shore, but the contrast of white sea against the black beach and, unfortunately, try as I might, I could not make the exposure time long enough to turn the sea into a white cotton wool coating. The slowest I could achieve was 1/45secs which, as you can see, kind of works, but there’s still too much details in the waves. If only I could limit the amount of light entering the camera so that I needed a longer exposure time to fill the bucket.

Here’s the same landscape with an ND filter attached:

 

Extending the exposure time turns the sea a milky white; 3secs @ f/16, ISO 100

Extending the exposure time turns the sea a milky white; 3secs @ f/16, ISO 100

This is much closer to the feel I was after, but notice that the exposure time is now a whole 3secs.

 

A Practical Example: ND Grad Filters

For the majority of the two weeks I spent travelling along the coast it was overcast or raining, usually both. It was that kind of light-grey overcast that photographers hate as it invariably ends up as a white featureless sky when exposing correctly for the subject. If you expose for the sky to get some detail back, then the foreground usually ends up as a silhouette, and trying to expose for both just ends up with a flat-looking images.

Here’s an example of the camera selecting the ‘correct’ exposure.

1/8sec @ f/16, ISO 100

1/8sec @ f/16, ISO 100

As you can see, the sky is a featureless grey-white and the tops of the snow-capped mountains disappear into that whiteness. In addition, the glacial tongues are a blob of white with no detail. The rest of the shot, however, is reasonably exposed – not too dark nor light. If only I could reduce the light in the sky part of the shot, but keep the landscape unchanged. This is precisely the job of the ND grad.

Here’s the same shot but with a two-stop ND grad filter, dark part over the sky and clear part over the foreground:

1/6s @ f/16, ISO 100

1/6s @ f/16, ISO 100

Already you can see the detail come back into the sky and the peaks of the mountains have become distinct from the sky. I’ve also been able to slow the shutter speed down a little bit, allowing more light into the exposure so the foreground is better illuminated.

Here’s the final image after a bit of careful positioning of the filter, and a spot of clarity and saturation adjustment in Adobe Lightroom. For me it has the right level of detail in the clouds, the glacial tongues, the ridges of rocks in the sides of the mountains and the lupins.

The final result...

The final result…

So, a bit of a long article but one I hope that shows that investing in a set of ND and ND grad filters can really make a difference to the creative feel of the shot. There are cheap ones and, of course, expensive ones. Cheap ones are more likely to alter the colour slightly as light passes though them, which isn’t great, but if you’re starting out and don’t want to invest too much then they can be a great place to start. Over the next few days I’ll post some more shots using my new plastic friends…

 

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The U-Boat Commander

May
04
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

It is a long weekend here in the UK but there’s no rest for the wicked and I’ve been working yesterday and today leaving just Monday for me to cram in all the usual household tasks and start wrapping up the preparation for the trip.

One of the monumental decisions is that I’m not going to be using satnav whilst driving around Iceland. That probably doesn’t seem like a life changing event, but given that I pretty much need satnav to get to the end of my street, the thought of driving across a foreign country for the first time without some reassuring “In two hundred yards turn left.” to guide me may likely end up in some kind of therapy being required.

 

Route 1 is the main 'getting form A to B' road. It is easy to see why there is no Icelandic translation for 'rush hour'.

Route 1 is the main ‘getting from A to B’ road. As Google Maps shows it is easy to see why there is no Icelandic translation for ‘rush hour’.

That being said, other than Reykjavik itself, you would struggle to call Iceland’s road network complex. Look at a map and you would be forgiven for thinking that the map designer had decided to include a couple of major roads and not bother with the rest. But no, that is pretty much the road network. Other than the ovoid route 1 that roughly travels the coastline of the island, there are two types of road you’ll find. The first type is similar to route 1 – a tarmac two-lane road – that usually acts as a spur off route 1 whilst the second type are the highland, or ‘F’ roads which are essentially gravel, or compacted crushed rock. As most of us travelling to Iceland will be hiring a car the rule is simple: Unless you have a 4WD it is best to view F roads with caution. Not only will they not be forgiving on the suspension, most hire companies have a hefty penalty for paintwork chips – a risk greatly increased by the loose surface of F roads. Their uneven surface will require higher clearance too, even more so as crossing fords is a common event on these roads. Ever since I killed a BMW 3 series when attempting to pass through a ford here in the UK – and subsequently earned the title ‘U-boat commander’ – I have always been wary of driving through anything deeper than a puddle.

As my trip is confined to the southwestern corner of Iceland, and I’ve no plans to venture significantly inland into the highlands, I only have to concern myself with a dozen or so roads and, where I do have to travel on F roads, it’s really only before they become ‘interesting’. No, as much as I would like to think of this journey as being worthy of Ranulph Fiennes, The driving won’t exactly be something legends are made of.

Still, I know myself and I know my sense of direction. So I am somewhat comforted by the purchase of the Ferdakort 1:250,000 touring maps. I’ve long had a thing about maps (even briefly referring to my study as the ‘Map Room’) and the maps from Ferdakort are really very nice – certainly as good as OS maps here in the UK. But, what I particularly like is that the Ferdakort maps include a few nice touches for those travelling the country.

 

Ferdakort touring maps have some handy extras for visitors to Iceland - the location of petrol stations for one thing.

Ferdakort touring maps have some handy extras for visitors to Iceland – the location of petrol stations for one thing.

For a start they include the location of petrol stations which, in a country consisting of sporadic population centres separated by vast tracts of wilderness, is a pretty handy feature. And, as petrol stations usually have a convenience store as well, you also know where to stock up on food. They also include the locations of many hotels and guesthouses – again a nice feature when trying to work out how to get to your accommodation. And F roads are clearly marked as broken lines and where crossing a ford will be required this is clearly shown with a nice big ‘V’.

So, my plan for tomorrow is to take all the points of interest that I have marked on Google Maps and transcribe them on to my lovely Ferdakort maps as accurately as possible. Then I can plan the routes I’ll need to follow and approximate times, which may sound a bit like overkill but remember a lot of the shots will be time-of-day dependent to get the right mood so minimising mistakes in directions will be useful.

But maybe I should take my satnav anyway. Not to use, you understand, but just in case I need to hear a reassuring “Turn left” every so often…

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Iceland. T minus 21.

May
01
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

Things have been quiet around here the past week or so mainly due to the fact that the majority of the core decisions were made some time ago, leaving me with worryingly little to do. That said, with 21 days to go, it is now time for the customary mad rush to get all the last-minute tasks completed.

That’s not to say I haven’t been continuing to plan the trip. In fact, after my last post about how much planning is required and how it can sometimes seem too much effort, it would appear that I have spent yet more hours on Google. And it has been worth it, but more of that later on.

Months ago I mentioned that Evernote plays a key role in any trip planning I undertake. The browser plug-in that allows you to copy all or part of a web page with a single click, combined with what is likely Windows 7 best feature – the snipping tool – means that I can quickly gather all manner of information for later use. But, as much of a geek that I am, I’ve never been too keen on relying on electronics when out in the field – simply because I am usually quite literally a field. So one of the remaining tasks is to distil all 84 Evernote clippings into a printable document. For me this apparent duplication of effort is usually fairly handy as the process forces me to consider how to group shooting locations, the logistics of getting between them and, if nothing more accurate, then at least a vague idea of the time required at each location. It also allows me to remove some of the more impractical ideas that ended up in Evernote as I get a better idea of the final itinerary.

The other tool I’m relying on now is the Reminder app on my phone, tablet and iCloud. Not because it is a particularly wonderful app, but it is always with me on one device or another and synchronises seamlessly. I’ve had an ‘Iceland 2014’ list for some time, but with three weeks to go it is now that it will really get a beating. Right now there are over a dozen outstanding tasks and more are being added as I think of them – usually in the oddest of places.

One of the larger outstanding decisions – and one that has come about from the continued research – is whether to take an entire day out of my time when based in Vik and go on an organised hike. Usually I would much prefer to go exploring by myself but I had this notion of going to see Eyjafjallajökull, simply known to the rest of the World as E-15* and the volcano that erupted in 2010 causing all the havoc. Like most places in Iceland, you could go yourself, but I’m tight on time and so having someone do all the planning seems like a good option. Google, unsurprisingly, came back with countless options but the quirky humour of the Eskimos Iceland website piqued my interest. A few emails later and the notion of getting to the top of E-15 has been replaced by a more general hike, but one that passes across E-15 and includes some other photogenic landscapes. Of course I have checked and there will be lava fields still warm from the eruption and the requisite steaming ground too. It sounds like a great way to see some hard-to-get-to landscapes. The fact that it is described as ‘challenging’ and ‘requiring the use of ropes and cables’ in some places only makes it more appealing.

The decision really is whether I can afford the time. I only five days based in Vik before heading east along the coast but I’m happy that that gives me a bit of slack just in case Iceland’s notoriously unpredictable weather decides to be playful. Taking a day of that to go hiking leaves me no time to reshoot locations should I need to.

Still, last minute rushing about aside, I’m really very excited!

 

*E-15  – E with an unpronounceable combination of 15 letters after it!

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The Holy Land Awaits

Apr
13
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

In the UK we have a saying about busses that goes something along the lines of “You wait ages for a bus and then three turn up at once”. I’m sure that every culture has a similar saying and we can all probably think of at least one occasion we’ve been in a ‘three busses’ situation. In many cultures it is even seen as a lucky number. In fact, for a mild OCD sufferer who craves symmetry and order, my life is surprisingly full of the number three and now so too are my travel plans it would seem, even if unintended.

Obviously I’m off to Iceland. That’s the first bus.

The second bus is that the company I work for has an incentive weekend booked ‘somewhere’ in Europe. The destination is all very hush-hush and very few people know the specifics. If the previous incentive weekends are anything to go by there will be a shocking amount of alcohol consumed and likely end up with some terribly embarrassing moments. But, it will also be a chance to get in some urban photography and I have already got some shots lined up.

Bus number three came as a big surprise and one I only found out about on Friday. I’ve been booked on a course at the head office of one of our company’s vendors. So, it would appear that I’m off to Israel  – Tel Aviv to be precise – in June! Despite being there to work, the benefit of travelling there in June is that daylight hours extend well into the evening and so I’m guessing that, even if I were to only stay for the duration of the course, I would get plenty of photographic sightseeing under my belt. It does go without saying, however, that I immediately booked the following week as holiday and so I have some dedicated time too. And now that I have had time to think about it, this trip has some rather fortuitous side effects.

For a start, I’ve had the outline of a trip to Jordan planned for ages but have never quite got round to seeing it through, mainly because I am a cold-weather person and, let’s be realistic, Jordan isn’t exactly known for its cold climate. Whilst Israel is obviously not going to be confused with Jordan, nor any cooler, one of the key stops on the Jordan itinerary was the Dead Sea, which conveniently has the majority of its shoreline in Israel. The last time I was at the Dead Sea was circa 1982 and far too young to appreciate it – or really remember it to be honest.

The next point is that Jerusalem isn’t too far from Tel Aviv – about an hour by bus in fact. Again, last time I was there was over three decades ago and so I only have dim recollections of the experience. A cursory Google would suggest that, whilst time and ‘progress’ has meant  that Jerusalem has inevitably modernised, it does seem to be largely confined to ‘new’ Jerusalem, leaving the old city as was. In any event,  you really can’t not go if you are in Israel, can you?

So, I’ve busied myself this weekend getting accommodation booked in Jerusalem and at the Dead Sea. There is still a lot of planning to do; travel plans between places, and ‘A’ and ‘B’ site lists being the most pressing. Still, it is all very exciting…

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Hiking Iceland’s Solheimajokull Glacial Tongue

Apr
12
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of organised trips. I’ve been on some pretty poor ones in the past and have learnt to avoid them where possible. Tours succeed or fail depending upon the passion and knowledge of the guide and so finding a good one is essential. It is also very tricky when visiting somewhere for the first time.

That said, sometimes you simply cannot avoid them, either because the area is otherwise inaccessible or simply too dangerous without expert local knowledge. Whilst Iceland is ostensibly one of the  safest countries to visit there are things you probably don’t want to attempt as a solo activity: In my case its walking on Vatnajökull, Europe’s largest glacier and one that covers approximately eight percent of Iceland. Glaciers are unforgiving: You need specialist equipment to have any chance of traversing them successfully and the rugged terrain is full of hidden surprises, such as crevasses lurking a few centimetres under apparently solid ground. When I was walking the Great Wild Wall in China I was warned not to travel alone as a sprained ankle would render me immobile and it could be days before I saw someone else. On a glacier, you wouldn’t have days; a single night would likely be enough to be the end of you.

So, I’ve just signed up with ExtermeIceland’s full day glacial hike. They come with excellent credentials, if Internet reviews are to be believed. Of course, everyone who signs up for a tour has their own reasons for doing so and mine is photography. Just like yours, I suspect. Their tour is not explicitly billed as a photographic tour, although I’m guessing that it would be crazy to not assume that anyone taking the time to go on a glacial hike will want to spend some time taking photographs.

As I have always found blogs a great source of information for travel, I’ll be doing my bit to contribute by offering a review of their tour from the photographer’s point-of-view upon my return.

Assuming, of course, the crevasses don’t get me…

 

 

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Vik: Five Days in the Shadow of Iceland’s Sleeping Giant

Feb
03
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

My job has me on the road and currently in Grimsby, a port-town in the northeast of England, before heading over to Liverpool, a port town in the northwest. Since I’m spending five out of seven evenings this week in hotels, its time to make good use of the solitude and catch up on planning the trip!

As mentioned in the last post, the itinerary framework is now complete in that periods of time have been allocated to each of the four base camps: Reykjanesbaer, the town of Vik, Skaftafell National Park and Jokulsarlon and then Reykjavik itself. But with five days in Vik alone and four in the Jokulsarlon area this really is the bare bones of a framework and there is still plenty to do to turn it into a trip that makes the best use of the time. Some people like to just turn up and go where providence takes them. It’s a great way to travel and you’re much more likely to experience something unexpected, but for better or worse, I’m not someone who travels that way.

Of the two main base camps Vik offers the biggest challenge simply as there is so much that can be seen within 100km of the town. Nestled at the base of the Kafta volcano, one of Iceland’s largest and most active, and within easy driving distance of Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that pretty much stopped western and northern European air travel for a week back in 2010, it presents a great base for seeing almost all of the variations in Iceland’s varied landscape.

For a start it’s a costal town that sits on the Reynisfjara beach, a fantastically pitch black volcanic expanse with mouth-wateringly photographic coastline in each direction. If you’re after landscape that’ll show even the largest tour group, let alone a solo traveller, just how massive Iceland’s geologic upheaval has been, then Fjaðrárgljúfur to the east is a safe bet. To the west along route 1 there are the waterfalls Skogafoss, Seljalandsfoss and Glufrafoss, about 60km distant. Not that you have to travel anywhere near that distance to see a waterfall in Iceland – there are simply so many that I defy anyone to find a reliably accurate figure –  but as the original itinerary saw me travelling counter-clockwise along route 1 I had many more planned for the east and north of the country and so I was careful not to overdo it in the west and south. Then there’s the curio of the 1973 US Navy plane wreck at Sólheimasandur that no-one can be bothered to remove.

A personal must-see for me is Kötlutangi where, if you look directly south, there is no land mass until Antarctica. There may be nothing to photograph there, but that’s in some ways nicer; I’ll be there just for the experience of looking out to the bottom of the World and a place I miss.

Now it is likely that you’d be able to comfortably see all of these in a couple of days, but I’m not in a great rush and part of the plan for this trip is to operate at the other end of the spectrum to Antarctica. There, we missed a couple of excursions to land due to poor weather and with no slack time in the schedule we simply had to move on. My Iceland schedule was designed from the outset to allow for poor weather and so should the weather mean I can’t get a particular shot, well at least I’ll have another chance. I’m also aware that, when looking at the coastline on Google Maps, it all looks, well, flat. I’m constantly reminding myself that, just because I’ll have a 4WD, that doesn’t mean that I won’t be walking. A lot. Now, walking I’m used to, and hill walking is no real issue, but this will be with a 12Kg camera backpack and on often less-than stable ground. As I’d rather not sprain an ankle, or worse, allowing more time to get from A to B seems a prudent choice.

As it stands, at Vik I feel that I’ve selected enough sites to provide a broad view of Iceland’s diverse landscape, but with some time left to just go exploring to see what I find. Time will tell…

 

 

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The Iceland Itinerary Is Finalised. Again.

Jan
27
2014
by Dave | 0 Comments

Hot on the heels of the last update plans for the trip have moved forward. I’ve decided on the itinerary, booked flights, the 4WD rental and even finalised all the accommodation. Which yes, does mean that I’ve come to a decision on the dates.

One of the things I was unsure of was simply the mechanics of travelling the 380km from Jokulsarlon to Keflavik in time for the flight, all on the same day. Knowing my luck, the 4WD would suffer some kind of terminal failure, I’d miss the flight and be stranded. The flip side was that, whilst the first version of the itinerary allowed a couple of extra days on the Reykjanesbaer peninsula – where the airport is located – it also spanned three weekends. That was three weekends of potential overtime at work, which ultimately pay for these trips. It was such a quandary.

I was also beginning to make the same mistake as the 2013 trip: Trying to fit in more and more locations. I had already began looking into the possibility of travelling north of Reykjavik based on a number of wonderful landscape shots I’d seen. It was only when I added up the days and cost that I realised I was attempting to do too much.

So, with a few changes, here is the itinerary:

  • THR 22 MAY
    Early afternoon flight to Keflavik International, pick up 4WD rental and check in to a local hotel on the Reykjanesbaer peninsula.
  • FRI 23 – SAT 24 MAY
    Go exploring on the Reykjanesbaer peninsula. In the afternoon, drive the 190km to Vik, undoubtably stopping along the way.
  • SUN 25 – THR 29 MAY
    Based in Vik, spend five days exploring the surrounding area, up to 100km or so.
  • FRI 30 MAY
    Drive over to the next base camp near Skaftafell national park. This is only 190km so again, I’m sure I’ll be stopping a few times.
  • SAT 31 – SUN 01 JUN
    A close base camp to Skaftafell National Park means spending time around, and on, Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier.
  • MON 02 – TUE 03 JUN
    Move to a base 40km east of Jokulsarlon and continue exploring. The move is more out of necessity as the hotel I’m in at Skaftafell is booked after after June 1st.
  • WED 04 JUN
    Drive to Reykjavik, return the 4WD and be out for some evening photography along the harbour.
  • THR 05 JUN
    A day relaxing in Reykjavik satisfying my needs for some architectural photography.
  • FRI 06 JUN
    Tying up last minute shots in the morning and fly out in the late afternoon.

For me, there’s a good balance of time here. In Antarctica I often found there wasn’t much time to compose shots – everything was moving and you were kept on a tight itinerary which, although understandable for certain destinations, is the one thing I dislike about organised trips. Here, there is no clock to watch and with five days in Vik alone, I’ve allowed plenty of time to slow down and work each location. Maybe too much time, but I’ll only know that in a few months.

The surprise is Reykjavik being included at all. I was quite keen to avoid it altogether and simply concentrate on the landscape aspect but, well, I can’t resist good architecture and I’ve wanted Hallgrimskirkja as a subject for a while. Plus, with just over two weeks of near solitude, being in a populated area will make a nice change.

So, the holiday is signed off at work, flights were purchased yesterday, as was the rental of the 4WD. Five sets of accommodation are all booked too and I’ve a good idea of where I want to be and see.

In short, Iceland 2014 is born. All I’ve got to do now is not mess it all up by changing things!

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