The Lesser Spotted Granni
Rather understandably, the steady trickle of visitors that make it to this lonely outpost tend to look in another direction. More often than not they point their cameras and phones in a southerly direction, taking in the grand vista of Haifoss and the huge canyon that leads away towards a distant coast. Here, at the edge of the place where the roads lead to Iceland's mysterious and untamed interior, you can get a sense of being completely alone, or at least you can when you choose to ignore the dozen or so other parties that came here instead of the leading Golden Circle attractions at Gulfoss and Strokkur.
Granni, the companion waterfall to the huge drop of Haifoss, is equally worthy of inspection, set under a grey moody sky against the dark brown slabs cast in sturdy layers of basalt columns. Here, the bright white cascade crashes and contrasts its way through sombre yet handsome tones towards the canyon floor. Contrasting tones that caught my eye and made me feel the shot was worth taking. Words don't really do justice to the sense of being here of course. At a right angle to the central element of your view, the preamble to the main fall is worthy of a capture in its own right, given enough time to explore the area more fully. How close you can get to it without falling into oblivion I can't say, so please don't write in if you or your loved ones suffer an unfortunate moment there.
Quite why we didn't get closer to the base of Granni during our meanderings through the bottom of the canyon tells a tale in itself perhaps. You can never have regrets, but I do wonder at the things we sometimes leave out - in this case driven by the obsession with capturing a focus stack or two from the base of the rainbow clad Haifoss. A few minutes of further clambering would have taken us around a corner and much closer to this beautiful creation by Mother Nature's architectural department at the canyon head. Even on what had been up until then a dry sunny day, we'd have probably taken a bit of a hosing by the competing drifts of spray, but if would have been a soaking worth suffering just to feel the rawness, the remoteness, and the utter grandeur of such a spectacular sight.
It was only after a period of ascent driven oxygen deprivation that we gazed back down towards the browns, greens and greys in front of us, where I took what I then saw as an afterthought - or a record shot as we sometimes like to call the creations that we don't expect to make the light of day. Of course, I took in the big view to the south - the one that features the 128 metre drop of Haifoss and the valley beyond towards the south coast. I have a small collection of raw files from there that might only produce a record shot - but then again you never know. I don't, because they're in one of that majority of untouched folders I mentioned in my last post.
So if you're heading this way and taking your 4 wheel drive across the bumpy track from road 32 to here, don't forget to take in the Lesser Spotted Granni. She's worth pointing your camera at with all manner of focal lengths. You might just be surprised to find an image that you weren't quite expecting on your SD card later.
The Lesser Spotted Granni
Rather understandably, the steady trickle of visitors that make it to this lonely outpost tend to look in another direction. More often than not they point their cameras and phones in a southerly direction, taking in the grand vista of Haifoss and the huge canyon that leads away towards a distant coast. Here, at the edge of the place where the roads lead to Iceland's mysterious and untamed interior, you can get a sense of being completely alone, or at least you can when you choose to ignore the dozen or so other parties that came here instead of the leading Golden Circle attractions at Gulfoss and Strokkur.
Granni, the companion waterfall to the huge drop of Haifoss, is equally worthy of inspection, set under a grey moody sky against the dark brown slabs cast in sturdy layers of basalt columns. Here, the bright white cascade crashes and contrasts its way through sombre yet handsome tones towards the canyon floor. Contrasting tones that caught my eye and made me feel the shot was worth taking. Words don't really do justice to the sense of being here of course. At a right angle to the central element of your view, the preamble to the main fall is worthy of a capture in its own right, given enough time to explore the area more fully. How close you can get to it without falling into oblivion I can't say, so please don't write in if you or your loved ones suffer an unfortunate moment there.
Quite why we didn't get closer to the base of Granni during our meanderings through the bottom of the canyon tells a tale in itself perhaps. You can never have regrets, but I do wonder at the things we sometimes leave out - in this case driven by the obsession with capturing a focus stack or two from the base of the rainbow clad Haifoss. A few minutes of further clambering would have taken us around a corner and much closer to this beautiful creation by Mother Nature's architectural department at the canyon head. Even on what had been up until then a dry sunny day, we'd have probably taken a bit of a hosing by the competing drifts of spray, but if would have been a soaking worth suffering just to feel the rawness, the remoteness, and the utter grandeur of such a spectacular sight.
It was only after a period of ascent driven oxygen deprivation that we gazed back down towards the browns, greens and greys in front of us, where I took what I then saw as an afterthought - or a record shot as we sometimes like to call the creations that we don't expect to make the light of day. Of course, I took in the big view to the south - the one that features the 128 metre drop of Haifoss and the valley beyond towards the south coast. I have a small collection of raw files from there that might only produce a record shot - but then again you never know. I don't, because they're in one of that majority of untouched folders I mentioned in my last post.
So if you're heading this way and taking your 4 wheel drive across the bumpy track from road 32 to here, don't forget to take in the Lesser Spotted Granni. She's worth pointing your camera at with all manner of focal lengths. You might just be surprised to find an image that you weren't quite expecting on your SD card later.