Churches on the Edge
There's no denying that Iceland does a very nice line in them. Lonely churches sitting at the edge of the landscape, within a hair's breadth of the ocean. The black church at Budir is understandably celebrated by togs from everywhere, while only a few miles away in Snaefellsnes sits its white sister in the small settlement at Hellnar. Quite often, a few miles inland you'll spot a Lutheran place of worship nestling snugly at the base of a huge mountain range instead, but there's often not much chance to pull up and take a shot. Not unless you want to hear what the driver of that thirty-eight tonne articulated lorry behind you thinks of your driving anyway. Even the mighty Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik stands within a short walking distance of the ocean. Apparently you can climb up to the top of the steeple there and take in the views in all directions. Need to join in with the rest of the tourists and do that next time.
I've always liked churches and the capacity they have to connect me to another time and people who are long since departed, even if what goes on inside them doesn't exactly set my pulses racing. I've been inside churches just twice in the last year, on both occasions saying farewell to sadly lost friends. I got married in a church once, over thirty years ago and at my ex-wife's insistence, but apart from the odd wedding and funeral in between, I've preferred to view them from the outside; especially when they catch the imagination in the way that the one at Standarkirkja on the Reykjanes peninsula does. It was the last day of the adventure before an early morning flight home, and we'd made our way here from our final base at Vik where we'd spent the previous four days mostly taking photographs, but often complaining about the weather when we weren't doing the former. The three hour drive back to the airport hotel meant there would be plenty of opportunities to take some final shots on the so often overlooked peninsula where the world's airlines bring increasing numbers of visitors to this extraordinary country. Of course a few weeks before we arrived, a volcano had been entertaining all and sundry, with a number of hastily fashioned car parks leaving thrill seekers with a 14km round hike to witness the magic. If the volcano had continued its business for a few weeks longer, our final day's itinerary would have been very different indeed. But as I know of at least two of you who very quickly booked excursions to Iceland on the back of the eruption and were sadly disappointed by the cessation of activities, we had at least planned our trip at the back end of last year, so I shan't complain. After all, Strandarkirkja had been on the list ever since it was first drafted - a final day diversion along with one or two others that we might happen across along the way.
The approach to the area after leaving the positively metropolitan Selfoss, where no less than nine thousand souls go about their daily routines, was a drive through a beautiful and distinctly coastal landscape. Largely flat, with just the hint of hilliness to the northern interior of the peninsula, the landscape is almost completely empty, the road surrounded by a hard orange and green covered volcanic terrain. For those of us who love to be apart from the mass of humanity, it's a corner of this mostly remote country where the sense of space is one of pure joy. And when you arrive at the sparse settlement of Standarkirkja, if empty landscapes are your thing, then you're going to like what you find. Before my parents decided to move us to Cornwall, we lived on the Romney Marsh in Kent, a place that still lives on inside the nine year old me, even though I've only ever been back once. Those small settlements and the thinly spread wooden huts and shacks on the beach at Dungeness still call from time to time, no more so than now as we wandered through a silent space that held the exact same appeal. A closed hotdog shack, an almost completely empty campsite, and a series of ramshackle wooden buildings dotted themselves across the place in a pleasingly disordered fashion. A bold bright orange Icelandic lighthouse stood sentinel like against the sea on the eastern boundary, while here on the opposite side, away from the settlement along a narrow lane was that church, a stoical witness to a thousand winter storms across the years.
And if you want simplicity, there's only one composition to take away from here as you stand at the northern boundary of the churchyard facing the church and the sea beyond and attach the wide angle lens to your camera. Needless to say, the menacing dark clouds to the south that had followed us here from Vik had parted on our arrival, to be interspersed with spells of unwanted bright sunshine, and so I had to remain patient while Lee wandered off down to the beach. Eventually I lost patience and followed him back through the churchyard and across the lane to the sea, at which point the dark clouds of course returned. And so, with a U turn that would have impressed the occupants of the highest corridors of power in our own country, I raced back towards the grassy mound and set up the shot once more. At regular intervals, the sun would force its way through the thick cloud and burn the histogram to bits, but eventually I got what I wanted. Bleak, black and doom laden. After all, you can't beat a bit of doom laden in a monochromatic hotspot such as this. Standarkirkja had given us exactly what we'd hoped for.
More than what we'd hoped for in fact, as a later image or two from Iceland's Dungeness will show. So many more stories to come.
Churches on the Edge
There's no denying that Iceland does a very nice line in them. Lonely churches sitting at the edge of the landscape, within a hair's breadth of the ocean. The black church at Budir is understandably celebrated by togs from everywhere, while only a few miles away in Snaefellsnes sits its white sister in the small settlement at Hellnar. Quite often, a few miles inland you'll spot a Lutheran place of worship nestling snugly at the base of a huge mountain range instead, but there's often not much chance to pull up and take a shot. Not unless you want to hear what the driver of that thirty-eight tonne articulated lorry behind you thinks of your driving anyway. Even the mighty Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik stands within a short walking distance of the ocean. Apparently you can climb up to the top of the steeple there and take in the views in all directions. Need to join in with the rest of the tourists and do that next time.
I've always liked churches and the capacity they have to connect me to another time and people who are long since departed, even if what goes on inside them doesn't exactly set my pulses racing. I've been inside churches just twice in the last year, on both occasions saying farewell to sadly lost friends. I got married in a church once, over thirty years ago and at my ex-wife's insistence, but apart from the odd wedding and funeral in between, I've preferred to view them from the outside; especially when they catch the imagination in the way that the one at Standarkirkja on the Reykjanes peninsula does. It was the last day of the adventure before an early morning flight home, and we'd made our way here from our final base at Vik where we'd spent the previous four days mostly taking photographs, but often complaining about the weather when we weren't doing the former. The three hour drive back to the airport hotel meant there would be plenty of opportunities to take some final shots on the so often overlooked peninsula where the world's airlines bring increasing numbers of visitors to this extraordinary country. Of course a few weeks before we arrived, a volcano had been entertaining all and sundry, with a number of hastily fashioned car parks leaving thrill seekers with a 14km round hike to witness the magic. If the volcano had continued its business for a few weeks longer, our final day's itinerary would have been very different indeed. But as I know of at least two of you who very quickly booked excursions to Iceland on the back of the eruption and were sadly disappointed by the cessation of activities, we had at least planned our trip at the back end of last year, so I shan't complain. After all, Strandarkirkja had been on the list ever since it was first drafted - a final day diversion along with one or two others that we might happen across along the way.
The approach to the area after leaving the positively metropolitan Selfoss, where no less than nine thousand souls go about their daily routines, was a drive through a beautiful and distinctly coastal landscape. Largely flat, with just the hint of hilliness to the northern interior of the peninsula, the landscape is almost completely empty, the road surrounded by a hard orange and green covered volcanic terrain. For those of us who love to be apart from the mass of humanity, it's a corner of this mostly remote country where the sense of space is one of pure joy. And when you arrive at the sparse settlement of Standarkirkja, if empty landscapes are your thing, then you're going to like what you find. Before my parents decided to move us to Cornwall, we lived on the Romney Marsh in Kent, a place that still lives on inside the nine year old me, even though I've only ever been back once. Those small settlements and the thinly spread wooden huts and shacks on the beach at Dungeness still call from time to time, no more so than now as we wandered through a silent space that held the exact same appeal. A closed hotdog shack, an almost completely empty campsite, and a series of ramshackle wooden buildings dotted themselves across the place in a pleasingly disordered fashion. A bold bright orange Icelandic lighthouse stood sentinel like against the sea on the eastern boundary, while here on the opposite side, away from the settlement along a narrow lane was that church, a stoical witness to a thousand winter storms across the years.
And if you want simplicity, there's only one composition to take away from here as you stand at the northern boundary of the churchyard facing the church and the sea beyond and attach the wide angle lens to your camera. Needless to say, the menacing dark clouds to the south that had followed us here from Vik had parted on our arrival, to be interspersed with spells of unwanted bright sunshine, and so I had to remain patient while Lee wandered off down to the beach. Eventually I lost patience and followed him back through the churchyard and across the lane to the sea, at which point the dark clouds of course returned. And so, with a U turn that would have impressed the occupants of the highest corridors of power in our own country, I raced back towards the grassy mound and set up the shot once more. At regular intervals, the sun would force its way through the thick cloud and burn the histogram to bits, but eventually I got what I wanted. Bleak, black and doom laden. After all, you can't beat a bit of doom laden in a monochromatic hotspot such as this. Standarkirkja had given us exactly what we'd hoped for.
More than what we'd hoped for in fact, as a later image or two from Iceland's Dungeness will show. So many more stories to come.