The Last Human Alive
It was the end of our eleventh day in Iceland, and we knew that the weather forecast for the twelfth looked pretty terrible. With only two days left after that, one of which would involve around a hundred fifty miles driving towards the west, the clock was beginning to run down on what had been a very successful trip, and one that I knew would have me working on the output for many months beyond, if not years. We’d returned to Reynisfjara for our final session before darkness arrived, and with the following day promising little more than a long time indoors in front of the television (the day of our late Queen’s funeral in fact), I wanted to make the most of things now. It was the second time today I’d stood here regarding the scene in front of me, and while the light didn’t have the colours and warmth of the previous evening when we’d arrived at nearby Vík, there were textures in the racing clouds and on the darkening sand that made me feel a long exposure shot to draw out the mood of the occasion was worth taking. Lee didn’t agree, and after muttering at length about the lack of colours in the sky, turned heel and made for the car. I told him I’d be some time. But then again I probably didn’t need to - he knows me well enough. There was business at hand in both directions along the beach as far as I was concerned and I wasn’t in a hurry to head for the warmth of the hotel just yet.
In fact I only took five shots in this direction. Or rather I took the same shot five times, as I continued to scan the sky for that hint of magenta that always seemed to be planning an appearance but never quite making one. Even the faintest tinge would probably have found me making merry with the saturation sliders in the editing suite, but in retrospect I’m glad my options were reduced to simple high contrast black and white forms on the almost completely empty beach, and the possible pitfalls of colourful chaos were avoided. By now, only a few sightseers remained, and they were all a long way behind me on the other side of the beach near the stacks of Reynisdrangar. In these moments I might have been the last human alive, gazing out at this familiar yet unworldly scene, the low flat monolith, land stolen from the ocean and thrust up above the surrounding space by mysterious geological forces, its attendant collection of rocks resembling a crudely designed submarine rising above the waves to guard the southern coast. And with the five shots on the SD card, I turned the camera in the opposite direction and pointed it at Reynisdrangar’s mighty sea stacks. It was getting dark by the time I was working at settings none of us particularly relish, especially with the telephoto lens. But that’s another story.
I don’t mind admitting the edit was a bit of a struggle. It took quite a lot of work before I began to love the image I was working on as I gently pushed and pulled the masks, but when it suddenly clicked and the final crop brought the scene closer to me on the big screen, the effort seemed worthwhile. Somewhere along the editing process, one of those horrible haloes had blemished the outline of the promontory and sea stacks of Dyrhólaey, and when the culprit was found among the layers, I groaned in the knowledge that a certain amount of cleaning was about to take place to banish the gremlins from the scene. And although the tiny white edges that bled from every contrasting edge were barely visible at all unless I started zooming in, I knew they were there. They had to go, whether the viewer might see them or not.
As I so often do, I asked Ali whether she thought the colour or monochrome version of events told the story better, and her view confirmed my own. Black and white it was, just as I’d envisioned when I stood behind the tripod and dragged out the six stop filter that evening. And when the finished image takes you right back to the moment and reminds you how you felt when you were there, that seems like a good thing to me.
The Last Human Alive
It was the end of our eleventh day in Iceland, and we knew that the weather forecast for the twelfth looked pretty terrible. With only two days left after that, one of which would involve around a hundred fifty miles driving towards the west, the clock was beginning to run down on what had been a very successful trip, and one that I knew would have me working on the output for many months beyond, if not years. We’d returned to Reynisfjara for our final session before darkness arrived, and with the following day promising little more than a long time indoors in front of the television (the day of our late Queen’s funeral in fact), I wanted to make the most of things now. It was the second time today I’d stood here regarding the scene in front of me, and while the light didn’t have the colours and warmth of the previous evening when we’d arrived at nearby Vík, there were textures in the racing clouds and on the darkening sand that made me feel a long exposure shot to draw out the mood of the occasion was worth taking. Lee didn’t agree, and after muttering at length about the lack of colours in the sky, turned heel and made for the car. I told him I’d be some time. But then again I probably didn’t need to - he knows me well enough. There was business at hand in both directions along the beach as far as I was concerned and I wasn’t in a hurry to head for the warmth of the hotel just yet.
In fact I only took five shots in this direction. Or rather I took the same shot five times, as I continued to scan the sky for that hint of magenta that always seemed to be planning an appearance but never quite making one. Even the faintest tinge would probably have found me making merry with the saturation sliders in the editing suite, but in retrospect I’m glad my options were reduced to simple high contrast black and white forms on the almost completely empty beach, and the possible pitfalls of colourful chaos were avoided. By now, only a few sightseers remained, and they were all a long way behind me on the other side of the beach near the stacks of Reynisdrangar. In these moments I might have been the last human alive, gazing out at this familiar yet unworldly scene, the low flat monolith, land stolen from the ocean and thrust up above the surrounding space by mysterious geological forces, its attendant collection of rocks resembling a crudely designed submarine rising above the waves to guard the southern coast. And with the five shots on the SD card, I turned the camera in the opposite direction and pointed it at Reynisdrangar’s mighty sea stacks. It was getting dark by the time I was working at settings none of us particularly relish, especially with the telephoto lens. But that’s another story.
I don’t mind admitting the edit was a bit of a struggle. It took quite a lot of work before I began to love the image I was working on as I gently pushed and pulled the masks, but when it suddenly clicked and the final crop brought the scene closer to me on the big screen, the effort seemed worthwhile. Somewhere along the editing process, one of those horrible haloes had blemished the outline of the promontory and sea stacks of Dyrhólaey, and when the culprit was found among the layers, I groaned in the knowledge that a certain amount of cleaning was about to take place to banish the gremlins from the scene. And although the tiny white edges that bled from every contrasting edge were barely visible at all unless I started zooming in, I knew they were there. They had to go, whether the viewer might see them or not.
As I so often do, I asked Ali whether she thought the colour or monochrome version of events told the story better, and her view confirmed my own. Black and white it was, just as I’d envisioned when I stood behind the tripod and dragged out the six stop filter that evening. And when the finished image takes you right back to the moment and reminds you how you felt when you were there, that seems like a good thing to me.