Invasion
Maybe the sleep deprivation was beginning to kick in rather more decisively than I realised as I stood at the edge of the fjord. As I faced across the water, looking up at the mountain beacon that brings so many people to this wild and remote corner of the world, the sky seemed to be filled with strange alien craft, an invasion of cigar shaped forms hovering silently above the unworldly landscape at the edge of the North Atlantic. After nearly thirty-six hours of barely any sleep at all, during which we’d spent about nine of them in the car and three more on the plane, perhaps I was hallucinating. But then again, I reminded myself I was back in Iceland. Everything is different in Iceland. The shapes in the sky weren’t a figment of an insomnia fuelled imagination. Those clouds were real.
This first afternoon, when we made straight for Kirkjufell after checking in and hastily stuffing down a couple of ham and tomato wraps to keep the hunger gremlins at bay, was offering gifts from the very start. After trudging around the marshes to the west, and then stopping at the classic waterfall composition, we turned up our noses at the invitation to part with a thousand krona for the new car park, and instead made for a layby on the road back to Grundarfjörður that we’d spotted earlier. It turned out to be a very useful spot in which to abandon the car because the path back towards the lake and the waterfall area was just long enough to be enjoyable without becoming tiresome. And besides that, there was another big plus as far as I was concerned, and that came in the shape of a third angle from where to train my lens upon the famous landmark in front of me. In fact Kirkjufell itself has the look of some curious intergalactic invader from this position too. Resisting the urge to race back to the apartment and start making sculptures from large mounds of mashed potato, I rubbed my eyes to make sure I hadn’t in fact fallen asleep on that squashed up chair in the main concourse at Luton Airport. Besides which, even potatoes cost a small fortune in Iceland.
While Lee closed his eyes in the passenger seat of the car and tried to reacquaint himself with the concept of shuteye, I set up the tripod low to the water and began to watch as one breezy blast after another chased across its surface, ripples racing over the fjord to create a bowl of textures at my feet. By now, even though I was running on fumes, I barely felt tired at all. Excitement at being back in Iceland was the overriding sensation that kept me clicking away in a contented frenzy, as others arrived to stand and stare a while before moving on. Unlike the waterfall zone, I didn’t have to compete for space or wait my turn to take my shot - I could spread my belongings extravagantly over the small pebbly beach and enjoy the moment. Once I’d finished, I returned to the car, tapped on the window and disturbed the Sleeping Beauty, telling him I was going to walk along the path back towards the lake. A grunt of acknowledgement came from the other side of the window and his eyes closed over again. Who needs sleep when the soul is thirsting for brand new compositions in the ultimate tog’s playground?
It was another edit that seemed to be an awful struggle at first. The only thing I was certain of was that we were again in monochrome territory, as there was barely a hint of colour anywhere, apart from a strangle bluish tint to those extraterrestrial clouds. The shadows were proving to be a particularly challenging aspect of what had been a lively old dynamic range. Quite often I might be quite happy to work with a silhouette in a situation like this, but I wanted something of those lumps, bumps and distinctive layers towards the summit. For a long time I felt as if I wasn’t getting anywhere at all, but those clouds were so extraordinary that I refused to concede and consign the exercise to the bin. Finally the crop tool came to the rescue. I then agonised over whether to go with the thirty-five millimetre image of Kirkjufell alone, or the wider one that brought in the land from the left on the other side of the road and delivered added context. Ultimately a tiny white speck, barely visible on the road between the land masses made the decision to go with the wide option for me. Can you see it? In a sense it doesn’t matter, because I know it’s there - a car with its headlights on, heading towards town and bringing scale to this extraordinary landscape. And above, dead centre in the sky the mother ship makes a flamboyant swirl towards the earth, as if it might just start to hoover up the mountains one by one.
There’s the imagination running riot again. But then again, anything seems possible in a place like this, either with or without sleep.
Invasion
Maybe the sleep deprivation was beginning to kick in rather more decisively than I realised as I stood at the edge of the fjord. As I faced across the water, looking up at the mountain beacon that brings so many people to this wild and remote corner of the world, the sky seemed to be filled with strange alien craft, an invasion of cigar shaped forms hovering silently above the unworldly landscape at the edge of the North Atlantic. After nearly thirty-six hours of barely any sleep at all, during which we’d spent about nine of them in the car and three more on the plane, perhaps I was hallucinating. But then again, I reminded myself I was back in Iceland. Everything is different in Iceland. The shapes in the sky weren’t a figment of an insomnia fuelled imagination. Those clouds were real.
This first afternoon, when we made straight for Kirkjufell after checking in and hastily stuffing down a couple of ham and tomato wraps to keep the hunger gremlins at bay, was offering gifts from the very start. After trudging around the marshes to the west, and then stopping at the classic waterfall composition, we turned up our noses at the invitation to part with a thousand krona for the new car park, and instead made for a layby on the road back to Grundarfjörður that we’d spotted earlier. It turned out to be a very useful spot in which to abandon the car because the path back towards the lake and the waterfall area was just long enough to be enjoyable without becoming tiresome. And besides that, there was another big plus as far as I was concerned, and that came in the shape of a third angle from where to train my lens upon the famous landmark in front of me. In fact Kirkjufell itself has the look of some curious intergalactic invader from this position too. Resisting the urge to race back to the apartment and start making sculptures from large mounds of mashed potato, I rubbed my eyes to make sure I hadn’t in fact fallen asleep on that squashed up chair in the main concourse at Luton Airport. Besides which, even potatoes cost a small fortune in Iceland.
While Lee closed his eyes in the passenger seat of the car and tried to reacquaint himself with the concept of shuteye, I set up the tripod low to the water and began to watch as one breezy blast after another chased across its surface, ripples racing over the fjord to create a bowl of textures at my feet. By now, even though I was running on fumes, I barely felt tired at all. Excitement at being back in Iceland was the overriding sensation that kept me clicking away in a contented frenzy, as others arrived to stand and stare a while before moving on. Unlike the waterfall zone, I didn’t have to compete for space or wait my turn to take my shot - I could spread my belongings extravagantly over the small pebbly beach and enjoy the moment. Once I’d finished, I returned to the car, tapped on the window and disturbed the Sleeping Beauty, telling him I was going to walk along the path back towards the lake. A grunt of acknowledgement came from the other side of the window and his eyes closed over again. Who needs sleep when the soul is thirsting for brand new compositions in the ultimate tog’s playground?
It was another edit that seemed to be an awful struggle at first. The only thing I was certain of was that we were again in monochrome territory, as there was barely a hint of colour anywhere, apart from a strangle bluish tint to those extraterrestrial clouds. The shadows were proving to be a particularly challenging aspect of what had been a lively old dynamic range. Quite often I might be quite happy to work with a silhouette in a situation like this, but I wanted something of those lumps, bumps and distinctive layers towards the summit. For a long time I felt as if I wasn’t getting anywhere at all, but those clouds were so extraordinary that I refused to concede and consign the exercise to the bin. Finally the crop tool came to the rescue. I then agonised over whether to go with the thirty-five millimetre image of Kirkjufell alone, or the wider one that brought in the land from the left on the other side of the road and delivered added context. Ultimately a tiny white speck, barely visible on the road between the land masses made the decision to go with the wide option for me. Can you see it? In a sense it doesn’t matter, because I know it’s there - a car with its headlights on, heading towards town and bringing scale to this extraordinary landscape. And above, dead centre in the sky the mother ship makes a flamboyant swirl towards the earth, as if it might just start to hoover up the mountains one by one.
There’s the imagination running riot again. But then again, anything seems possible in a place like this, either with or without sleep.