Icebergs and Big Heads

by | Apr 20, 2015 | Travel Photography

Our plan this morning had us backtracking to check out a Viking village my friend Nick had told me about. It was an old movie set that someone had on their property. I have to say it looked pretty cool from a distance but up close you can see the wear and tear mother nature has doled out.

Village

Village

I explored the area inside the fence before wandering around to the back near the foothills where I found this little guy (or girl, I didn’t really check).

Well Hello There

Well Hello There

He was mostly uncooperative munching away at the grass but as soon as I started to give up he raised his head and I was able to get this great shot. I love the distorted view.

Our next stop was one of the more anticipated locations – the Glacier lagoon. I was super excited to visit here and we were told that we picked one of the best days with quite a lot of icebergs in the lagoon. Yay us!

Glacier Lagoon

Glacier Lagoon

The lagoon is not the only place to see these lovely beauties. On the opposite side of the road lies the ocean and stranded icebergs along its shores. With black sand beaches as far as you can see and crystal blue and white icebergs dotting its beach its no wonder that most people look forward to visiting this surreal place.

The Wave

The Wave

From small pieces of ice to ones taller than me stuck on the shoreline it is incomprehensible that you are looking at ice that quite possibly is thousands of years old. We spent quite a bit of time here but eventually we had to move on. We had to reach the town of Vik to get settled in for the night and enjoy some hot springs before dinner.

We had just one more stop to make along the way. I had found a photo online of a turf church whose grave mounds were also covered in turf. It looked pretty neat and so we made the stop.

Turf Church

Turf Church

And I’m glad we did. Although it was a short 10 or 15 minute stop it was well worth seeing this church and its graveyard. A recommended stop along this route and not too far off the ring road for a quick look.

Turf Homes and Waterfalls

by | Apr 17, 2015 | Black & White, Long Exposure, Travel Photography

Today we headed just north of Akureryi to find some turf homes before finding us some waterfalls. About 30 minutes from the town we found an outdoor museum that had some turf homes, a church and a barn.

Turf Homes

Turf Homes

We spent some time here checking out all the angles, and trying some new ways to photograph the same things. Driving a little further along the ring road our hopes were to check out Dettifoss, one of the largest waterfalls in Europe with a huge amount of water falling over its crest. The original idea was to approach from the east road only to find it closed due to flooding. So, we had to back track to hit the west road and the more popular route to the falls.

Dettifoss

Dettifoss

The main reason for driving to the east road was a clearer view of the falls as the cliffs obstruct most of the falls from our eastern angle. It was time to get creative. The great thing about there still being snow on the ground (albeit a slushy, hard to walk through kind of snow) is the patterns that can be created because of the falls and what I suspect to be volcanic ash. Upstream from mighty Detifoss is a mini “Niagara” of sorts called Selfoss.

Selfoss

Selfoss

Located only one kilometre upstream from Detifoss it has its own kind of majesty. One can walk right up to the top of the falls and enjoy the spray that ultimately makes you very damp along with your gear. It’s difficult to get close to a lot of these waterfalls because of the spray. I was constantly wiping my lenses and not always leaving with shots that were droplet free. It takes a lot of patience and a whole lot of microfibre cloths to get some of these photos. Course using a long lens can offer you different opportunities than a wide angle lens. The Dettifoss photo was taken with a 500mm lens while the shot of Selfoss was with my wide angle.