Revisiting Iceland After Six Years
Six years ago, Amanda & I went to Iceland. The kids were four and one, and we were exhausted. The appeal of going to Iceland was seclusion, open landscapes, and several days driving the Ring Road in isolation away from jobs, clients, and everything else that makes life insane. The kids were handed off to my mom, and we flew first-class to Iceland having won an upgrade lottery. We landed and immediately started off on our adventure.
These photos are six years old now. My original gallery from this trip looks quite different - the biggest difference is that it’s in color. I really never considered monochrome as an option for travel photos, mostly keeping black and white for portraits. Yet one thing I learned this past fall while in London with the Leica M11M was the value of monochrome photography when it comes to clouds and dreary weather. Our time in Iceland was very cloudy, and very dreary. There were even times where the landmark landscape we went to see was completely hidden by fog and we had to move on.
While revisiting Iceland through my old RAW files, I asked the question - how would these landscapes look in monochrome? Would they lose their magic, or would the mystery of grayscale create a brand new interpretation of these images and moments?
As a landscape photographer at heart, I’m always reflecting on what draws people like me (and millions of others) to places like this. I certainly saw some of the same locations that have been photographed extensively and have been reduced from purity to cliche. Yet we also got off the road and deep into trails among rivers and in valleys. We climbed steep, rocky mountainsides to explore the little cave or crack in the wall we saw on the side of the mountain. We found hot springs off the beaten path that you’d only visit because you wanted to spend half a day trying to get to it.
One location that was closed off was the famous Fjadrargljufur canyon, due to over tourism. A few years before we ventured to Iceland, Justin Bieber recorded a music video in this canyon. That viral sensation brought people from all over the world to this canyon in such great numbers that it forced the country to make it off limits so it could heal itself. The road was closed to cars and pedestrians two miles away from the canyon. I thought maybe I’d attempt a drone flight for an aerial photo. I ended up getting the shot, but maxed out the distance limit of my drone at two-miles. My screen went black and the drone disconnected. Thankfully, it flew back to me until it regained signal, with one photo on it.
I don’t really drone anymore.
There is something absolutely spectacular about seeing a glacier in real life, and up close. The sheer magnitude and size of the glacier ice is incredible. No photo can tell you how small you are compared to these ice walls because you simply cannot safely get close enough to understand the scale. Hiking as close as we could to them (and catching seventy mile-per-hour winds in our face) was an experience I’ll never forget.
Black sand beaches are common in the north Atlantic, and many beaches in Iceland are made of dark, volcanic sand receiving water mixed with ice all year. Diamond Beach was especially beautiful, as shards of ice litter the black sand as the glacier bay empties into the ocean, and the ocean refines the ice and returns it to the land.
As you continue to the eastern portion of the island, the sand remains as dark but the gift from the ocean is no longer ice but a coating of thick fog. East Iceland is the most secluded I’ve ever been in my life. No cities. No towns or villages. No people. No phone service or data. I felt as distant as if I was on another planet. As a parent, it was terrifying. As an adventurer, it felt like pioneering.
Once we approached the north side of the island, we got into more active and ancient geothermal activity. The smell of sulfur is the same whether you’re in Yellowstone or Iceland. This side of the island was warmer, and thankfully, more populous. We began to see signs of life again after being alone in the east.
In our time in Iceland, we were constantly on the move around the Ring Road. We never stayed at one location for more than a day until we arrived at this tiny home. All of our exhaustion from our life (followed by the pace of this trip) hit us when we entered our little rented house. We ended up extending our time here for a few days and just taking in the local sites.
When we would go to find food (which was actually quite difficult for most of our drive, with limited restaurants and even open gas stations), we would always be met with servers reminding us about the food scarcity in Iceland. Everything is imported, and they make it a point to waste nothing. Multiple times servers stood over us to make sure we ate all of our food, or scoffed if we didn’t.
As I reflect on my photography from 2019, I was fortunate to travel a lot. I was in the Middle East. I was in Ireland. Iceland. Canada. US National Parks. It was probably the busiest year of my life, looking back on it. It’s interesting to see how in many ways, I’m a very different photographer today. Back then I mostly carried two lenses: a 12-24mm and a 24-70mm. That was it. More times than not, I was reaching for the 12-24mm and shooting around 20mm.
I would never do this today. It was later in 2019 that I would sell my entire kit and make big changes, one being a full switch to prime lenses.
Yet, in many ways I’m still chasing the same thing. I love a good adventure. I love an opportunity to find something new, whether it’s an experience, location, or a composition. I also love finding a new edit years later, like now. The photo below this text really feels amazing to me in black and white. It was a photo I passed over in 2019. We are constantly changing.
Having two bodies with autofocus was a different world of photography than I am living today where I have one digital body, and it’s a fully manual Leica M11. Back in Iceland (and the travels before changing up my kit), I could hand one of the Canon 5D Mark IV cameras to Amanda and be included in photos. These days, it’s pretty rare for me to be in front of the camera.
When I got back from Iceland, I had friends ask me if I’d go back. I use to say “no, it was a great one-time experience.” Today, I’m thinking I’d go back. I’d do things differently. I’d spend less time in some places, and more time in others. I’d shoot my prime lenses on my Leica. I’d probably shoot a lot on medium format, as well. I don’t know when / if I’ll ever go back, but I’m glad I get to revisit these photos from time to time, or even re-edit them with my current voice.
