Iceland photos

[LocalHero1953]

Ooohh, all so lovely. Ironically I have spent today looking at Iceland and tours my elderly and infirm parents can make from a cruise ship in Reyjavik and from the North - those and looking at these has reminded me of the unfinished business I have with Iceland....... Any photos that entice the viewer to want to visit are good in my book and these certainly do that.

BTW, It was mid summer when we went and a staggering 18 degrees - the locals were complaining it was to hot ! We got sunburnt as the last thing on our packing list was suntan lotion.

It got up to 20C on a couple of days! But it was generally much less, and they were complaining about unseasonal rain in Reykjavik.

We saw cruise ships in Reykjavik and Isalfjordur, and a cruise group in Bakkagerdi, though I don't know where they had docked.

Thanks for your comments!

[LocalHero1953]

Nice shots of the waterfalls. The one thing I wasn't really expecting when we first got to Iceland is that there seemed to be a magnificent waterfall just about everywhere. Ho hum; another beautifull waterfall..

We said almost the same thing on our last day when we saw a waterfall with a 50m+ drop: "nah, not worth the diversion, not enough water".

[Manfred M]

Ironically I have spent today looking at Iceland and tours my elderly and infirm parents can make from a cruise ship in Reyjavik and from the North - those and looking at these has reminded me of the unfinished business I have with Iceland.

Kaye - we certainly saw a cruise ship that had docked at Akureyri and we were totally shocked at the large number of people in walkers and other assistive devices that had disembarked from the ship. I'm not sure if the cruise was targeting mobility impaired seniors or if this was just a random event.

[LocalHero1953]

A couple of glacial terminal lakes.


Jokulsarlon, eastern region.
We arrived late afternoon intending to have a quick look before coming back the next morning. The light was just magical and we stayed several hours. Next morning it was grey again!

Edit: I have re-edited this. I realised after uploading that it was too dark.


Fjallsjokull.
A low cloud base; I've had to work on this to avoid losing it all into white at the top.

[Mike Buckley]

Paul,

Did you go across the highway from Jokulsarlon to the lava beach that has large chunks of ice strewn all over the beach so much that you have to be careful where you walk?

[LocalHero1953]

Mike, we did the next morning. I remembered your recommendation (thanks!), but there was not much ice debris. There was, however, a feeding frenzy of Arctic Terns. With only a 90mm lens and manual focusing my hit rate was low, but the instantaneous response of the Leica shutter and the big optical finder helped a lot to visualise and grab the moment. This is the best individual one I got: plenty of others in groups but none quite so on the moment. It is heavily cropped to about 1600x1000. f5.6, 1/2000sec, ISO200.

[Mike Buckley]

Perhaps the time of year that you went explains why there was little ice on the beach. I was there in September and there was lots of ice.

[LocalHero1953]

Perhaps the time of year that you went explains why there was little ice on the beach. I was there in September and there was lots of ice.

There was nowhere near that amount on our visit - time of year must be the reason.

[bnnrcn]

Thanks for sharing Paul, I really enjoyed viewing all of them

[Manfred M]

Love the tern diving shot. Your timing was perfect on that one.

As for ice on the beach at Jokulsarlon; very little on both trips (early to mid-July and early to mid-August). I wonder if the tide and wind were not working in out favour, as we certainly saw the chunks of ice heading out of the lake and into the ocean. On our second trip, they were doing repairs to the bridge and it was so noisy, we did not stick around for long.

[LocalHero1953]

Coasts and harbours


Western Fjords


Husavik harbour, late at night


Jokulsarlon


Reykjavik - the opera house


Snaefellsnes, at the western tip of the peninsula


Stykkisholmur


A remote location on the north coast. Taken at about 11pm, ISO200. 90mm lens at 1/180sec and f/4, so depth of field a bit shallow and movement of the RH duck is visible. They're all ducks to me, but this serene location, a campsite combined with bird and seal watching, convinced me I need a bird book when I go back.

[Mike Buckley]

Jokulsarlon apparently also had a lot fewer and smaller icebergs than when I was there in September.

Consider cropping the photo of the opera house on the left side to exclude the ship. Doing so makes a really attractive photo for me that creates a relationship between the green tones on the near right and in the far center.

[Brownbear]

Beautiful images! Thank you for sharing.

Too many to comment on individually but my favourites are the little girl in pink, the tern, the farm landscape with the mountain in the background, glacier lakes and the western tip of the peninsula.

[LocalHero1953]

Jokulsarlon apparently also had a lot fewer and smaller icebergs than when I was there in September.

Consider cropping the photo of the opera house on the left side to exclude the ship. Doing so makes a really attractive photo for me that creates a relationship between the green tones on the near right and in the far center.

Thanks, Mike, I hadn't thought of trying that. I have a habit of symmetry which I must learn to kick!

[LocalHero1953]

Jokulsarlon apparently also had a lot fewer and smaller icebergs than when I was there in September.

I don't think you should conclude that from just my shot - I took an angle across the front of the ice pack rather than shooting into it, in order to get the cloud reflection.

Edit: I love the light you caught shining through the ice in so many of your shots. I didn't get that, maybe partly because the sun didn't get low while we were there (till about 6.30pm)

Edit 2: I just realised you may be referring to my shot above with the two people on the spit. That is definitely representative of the bergs going out to sea.

[LocalHero1953]

Beautiful images! ...... the little girl in pink.......

Thank you! I saw her out of the corner of my eye run from her mother (out of shot to the left) and climb up. I just had time to change to a longer lens (partly to keep out of their view and partly to cut down DOF). It was only after I took it that I realised she was dressed in the right colours!

[Manfred M]

I love the shot of the opera house with the fishing boat. Opera house and warf, indeed!

Fishing is still such a significant part of Iceland culture, I find that this shot really works well.

[Brownbear]

Thank you for sharing! It's truly special. I forgot to say that I also love Sky Scape... Beautiful!

Thank you! I saw her out of the corner of my eye run from her mother (out of shot to the left) and climb up. I just had time to change to a longer lens (partly to keep out of their view and partly to cut down DOF). It was only after I took it that I realised she was dressed in the right colours!

[LocalHero1953]

And here's the last group, from the highlands, taken during a trip from the ring road in the north to the Askjar area, then back east to the Eastern Fjords region.


Lava field badlands


Oasis. Askjar


The Viti crater, a small round crater lake at Askjar on the edge of the main Oskjuvatn caldera


The Oskjuvatn caldera lake at Askjar. The weather was mostly terrible (cold, wet, misty), but it lifted enough to get a tiny bit of colour into the scene. The biggest landslip in recorded history had occurred here the previous week, taking out the main foot access route and creating a 50m high wave, so the local rangers wouldn't let anyone nearer. I'm OK with that!


Tourist shot - our home for most of the trip. Taken on the Odadahraun, which means the "Desert of Misdeeds".


I should have said at the outset that these images were almost entirely processed in Lightroom. The exceptions were (a) 2-3 skies which I darkened to better balance the land exposure: Photoshop has much better tools for selection/masking than LR; and (b) I removed a power line from the image of the small church at the foot of the mountains: Photoshop's content-aware tools do this much better than LR's clone/heal tool.

As you can see, I favour the 16x9 format for landscapes, though will select whatever else the subject suggests. I'd be interested in anyone else's opinions on this.

That's all folks! Thank you very much for your advice and comments. Further C&C would still be welcome.

Edit: just noticed a few dust spots I should have taken out - apologies.

[Brownbear]

Just to say that #2 and #3 of this set are especially beautiful to me. (composition) #3 is especially unique, and one of my new favourites of yours.