Iceland: ad infinitum
Thus quoth the hrafn
in Photography , Thursday, July 14, 2016
Well, things have been a bit quiet around here this last month. There are plenty of reasons for this, including usual summer house guests, spending most of what little time I have to dedicate to extra-curricular activities to a forthcoming website redesign, and preparing for (yet) another trip to Iceland.
Actually, this is my first since 2012, and first summer trip since, er, 2007 I think. I was supposed to go last year, but had to call it off for family reasons. I have quite a sense of trepidation about this trip, as from what I've been reading the tourist traffic has exploded, and I'm expecting to see a lot of changes, not necessarily for the better.
To try to get back into the groove I've revisited, again, my Iceland archive, and out of over 5400 photos (and that's just the digital stuff), I've managed to extract 82 which somehow start to express what I personally get from Iceland. Obviously, practically every "landscape" photographer on the web now has an Iceland gallery, with the standard Whereverfoss and bit-of-ice-on-the-beach-with-big-stopper photos, so that's pretty much killed that part. And of course there are countless books, mostly very repetitive. Of these I'd pick out Ragnar Axelsson and Marco Paoluzzo as two photographers who push the boundaries a bit. I'm sure there are others. On the pure landscape side, I still rate Daniel Bergmann and Hans Strand at the top of a very long list. I'd love to be able to say I've got my own vision of Iceland, but so far, I haven't.
It is certainly easy to imagine doing "something different", but when placed in any of Iceland's very numerous iconic locations, it is very, very hard to turn your back on the main attraction.
The following are a few non-iconic shots extracted from my selection of 82. Possibly they indicate the direction I might go in, but it's far more likely that I'll fall, again, to the temptation of the long exposure waterfalls. And so what. It's fun.
Actually, this is my first since 2012, and first summer trip since, er, 2007 I think. I was supposed to go last year, but had to call it off for family reasons. I have quite a sense of trepidation about this trip, as from what I've been reading the tourist traffic has exploded, and I'm expecting to see a lot of changes, not necessarily for the better.
To try to get back into the groove I've revisited, again, my Iceland archive, and out of over 5400 photos (and that's just the digital stuff), I've managed to extract 82 which somehow start to express what I personally get from Iceland. Obviously, practically every "landscape" photographer on the web now has an Iceland gallery, with the standard Whereverfoss and bit-of-ice-on-the-beach-with-big-stopper photos, so that's pretty much killed that part. And of course there are countless books, mostly very repetitive. Of these I'd pick out Ragnar Axelsson and Marco Paoluzzo as two photographers who push the boundaries a bit. I'm sure there are others. On the pure landscape side, I still rate Daniel Bergmann and Hans Strand at the top of a very long list. I'd love to be able to say I've got my own vision of Iceland, but so far, I haven't.
It is certainly easy to imagine doing "something different", but when placed in any of Iceland's very numerous iconic locations, it is very, very hard to turn your back on the main attraction.
The following are a few non-iconic shots extracted from my selection of 82. Possibly they indicate the direction I might go in, but it's far more likely that I'll fall, again, to the temptation of the long exposure waterfalls. And so what. It's fun.
