This is a place named “Landmannalaugar”. It’s a volcanic topography. It took some effort to get through the area. I rented a 4×4 and drove at a crawling pace no higher than 30 kilometers per hour. The final stretch to get to the camp site, I must cross an about 60 to 90 feet wide, 20 inches deep small river. Because of the mineral deposits, the volcanic topography is very colorful. I remember it took me 4 to 5 hours to drive through the area and reached the camp site. In this image a lady from one of the north Europe countries was riding by herself alone. Since I myself is also a cyclist, I initiated a conversation with her. I don’t remember most of the conversation other than one question I asked: “So, how far have you been ridden? What’s the distance?” She answered, “I don’t know. I don’t record that. I just enjoy the ride till am too tired to keep going.” That answer just simply struck me. Like most bicycle riders, we record everything and I mean everything from speed, top speed, distance, average speed, heart rate, incline, decline and so on so forth. Yet she records nothing. All she did was ride from point A to point B and enjoying the ride regardless the time and effort she spent. She gave me an entirely new perspective on riding a bicycle. I looked at her riding alone on the uneven, bumpy and harsh roads and couldn’t help but click my shutter release. Salute.
I put these two pictures together for a reason. Let me start with the first one which is the one with a bright spot at the lower left corner. That bright spot is moon setting not a sunset. If it’s sunset, it would be too bright to see the aurora borealis. The time to take this image was around 4:00 – 4:30am before dawn. I started to cruising around the southeast to southwest along the ring road since around 9:30pm the night before. The aurora borealis show was fantastically on and off which kept me pumped up and excited throughout the night without any caffeine. However, it’s not until this swoop of aurora borealis showing that made the entire night radiant. When it started to form a curvy touch on the sky, I was driving and immediately realized that I need to find a foreground to match this swoop of light otherwise it would be too boring and monotonous. I was in the middle of nowhere at the time and eagerly to find somewhere to stop because I knew by then aurora borealis lasting only a short period of time. Right at this moment, I saw a towering rock or mountain and decided “this is it” because I had no more time to spend. I later on during the post-processing found out this towering rock is named Lómagnúpur mountain and you could see it’s in the middle of nowhere on the map along the ring road. I grabbed my equipment from my rental car and started looking for a spot to shoot. To my surprise by looking around that the moon was setting and the color starting to be a fantastic and perfect contrast, warm vs. cold color, to the aurora borealis. All I needed to do was to find a spot to take the shot. I parked at the opposite side of the ring road to the moon setting so I picked up everything and crossed the road. It’s around 4:00 in the morning and no other cars or a soul around. As soon as I crossed the road I saw bright surface on the ground farther away from the road. I knew it’s water and also knew it would be something even better if I could get reflection out from the patch of water. However, it’s dark, very dark. There was almost no light pollution at Iceland as long as away from towns or cities. I couldn’t see much on the ground and know there were potential danger on it. For example, what if there is a waterhole? What if there is quicksand? I walked as fast as I could under safety concerns and found a spot where I was satisfied with. I started shooting right away. Not only the aurora borealis kept changing but also the moon setting. Before I knew it, the moon was totally under the horizon and the shape of the aurora borealis was no longer a beautiful semi-circle swoop anymore. It took less than 15 minutes.
When it’s all finished, I sat in my car to playback and enjoyed every moment and single frame of them. I was also very tired and hungry and decided to find a spot to park my car securely to take a nap. I was driving on the ring road again. Moments later to the corner of my eyes I saw a beautiful light to my left side along with the aurora borealis. I was too tired to think and reacted intuitively: stop, park the car, grab the tripod and camera and starting to shoot. After a few shots I finally realized that this is no other light than the dawn. Only by then I looked at my watch and realized sure enough it’s almost 5:30am. From around 9:30pm the previous night till 5:30am the next morning, I had been on this stretch of ring road for 8 hours to hunt for aurora borealis. It’s well worthwhile with such fantastic results. I was smiling while I fell in asleep in my car parked securely at a parking spot that morning.
Without a doubt this is the most recognizable and famous mountain at Iceland in this image and it’s the Kirkjufell mountain. There are many elements in this image and let me introduce them. To the lower left corner is a waterfall and opposite to it is a river pouring into the ocean. To the right side the bright spot is moon rising and to the opposite side the bright area is sunset. On top of the Kirkjufell mountain is the aurora borealis. I named this image “Symphony”. The time I took this image is around midnight and the moon just rising and sun just setting.
Iceland is a very beautiful place. There are all kinds of terrain and land formation. I traveled many places and thought I had seen enough waterfalls but stunned by the powerful yet novel waterfalls. Magical sunset light reflects on the crystal ice cubes at the Diamond beach takes breath away. Rich and various volcanic remains and terrain expand our horizons in the power of nature. Aurora borealis meets steep yet assorted land formations making not speechless but absolute awing beauty. Nevertheless, all these bewildering comes with a threat, an enormous threat and that is the weather at Iceland. The weather is unpredictable and temperamental. One of the most dangerous elements in the temperamental weather is the wind. In this image, the sea gull had been trying to take off from the ice to fly away for ten minutes in vain. I stood there for ten minutes just to witness it. This is the first and only time I saw the wind could prevent a bird from flying. Every time the gull’s feet left the ice surface, the wind blew it right back. The gull had no chance. The wind at Iceland doesn’t come from one direction but omnidirectional. In addition to the omnidirectional wind, it’s fierce and strong. I must tilt my entire body in the wind to move around. Since the wind is ominous directional and fierce, I must walk literally like a drunk in the wind without consuming a drop of alcohol. Iceland, a place full of magic!
Volcanic activity and remains are another feature at Iceland. In the first picture, we could see the mud bubbling constantly and never repeated bubble formation. I called it “living sculpture” and a natural’s artistic creation. The size of these bubbles are from a ping-pong ball to a baseball and the pit itself is usually a table size. You may see this kind of volcanic activities in many places and there are some at Yellowstone NP in the US.
In this second picture, you could also see activities in motion. The steam was so hot that I couldn’t getting any closer, otherwise, I would get burned. The size of the pit is not too different than the first one about a table size.
In the third picture, it’s remains. If you look carefully, you could see sheep pacing around them. These are about a house size much larger than the previous ones.
In the forth picture, it’s an enormous, gigantic pit. How big? I could’t cover it with one shot with my wide-angle lens and must take several picture then stitch them together to form one. If that still couldn’t get you a good idea, please see the enlarged circle in the fifth picture. See the three protruding objects in the enlarged circle? These were 3 people standing at the very edge of the pit.
Nature makes people humble.
