{"id":6418,"date":"2024-11-09T19:40:58","date_gmt":"2024-11-09T19:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/?page_id=6418"},"modified":"2024-11-09T20:20:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T20:20:42","slug":"2014-iceland-blog","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/2014-iceland-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Iceland Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This is a place named \u201cLandmannalaugar\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s a volcanic topography.\u00a0 It took some effort to get through the area.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In this image a lady from one of the north Europe countries was riding by herself alone.\u00a0 Since I myself is also a cyclist, I initiated a conversation with her.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember most of the conversation other than one question I asked: \u201cSo, how far have you been ridden?\u00a0 What\u2019s the distance?\u201d\u00a0 She answered, \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I don\u2019t record that.\u00a0 I just enjoy the ride till am too tired to keep going.\u201d\u00a0 That answer just simply struck me.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Yet she records nothing.\u00a0 All she did was ride from point A to point B and enjoying the ride regardless the time and effort she spent.\u00a0 She gave me an entirely new perspective on riding a bicycle.\u00a0 I looked at her riding alone on the uneven, bumpy and harsh roads and couldn\u2019t help but click my shutter release. Salute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I put these two pictures together for a reason.  <\/span>Let me start with the first one which is the one with a bright spot at the lower left corner.  <\/span>That bright spot is moon setting not a sunset.  <\/span>If it\u2019s sunset, it would be too bright to see the aurora borealis.  <\/span>The time to take this image was around 4:00 – 4:30am before dawn.  <\/span>I started to cruising around the southeast to southwest along the ring road since around 9:30pm the night before.  <\/span>The aurora borealis show was fantastically on and off which kept me pumped up and excited throughout the night without any caffeine.  <\/span>However, it\u2019s not until this swoop of aurora borealis showing that made the entire night radiant.  <\/span>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.  <\/span>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.  <\/span>Right at this moment, I saw a towering rock or mountain and decided \u201cthis is it\u201d because I had no more time to spend.  <\/span>I later on during the post-processing found out this towering rock is named L\u00f3magn\u00fapur mountain and you could see it\u2019s in the middle of nowhere on the map along the ring road.  <\/span>I grabbed my equipment from my rental car and started looking for a spot to shoot.  <\/span>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.  <\/span>All I needed to do was to find a spot to take the shot.  <\/span>I parked at the opposite side of the ring road to the moon setting so I picked up everything and crossed the road.  <\/span>It\u2019s around 4:00 in the morning and no other cars or a soul around.  <\/span>As soon as I crossed the road I saw bright surface on the ground farther away from the road.  <\/span>I knew it\u2019s water and also knew it would be something even better if I could get reflection out from the patch of water.  <\/span>However, it\u2019s dark, very dark.  <\/span>There was almost no light pollution at Iceland as long as away from towns or cities.  <\/span>I couldn\u2019t see much on the ground and know there were potential danger on it.  <\/span>For example, what if there is a waterhole? What if there is quicksand?  <\/span>I walked as fast as I could under safety concerns and found a spot where I was satisfied with.  <\/span>I started shooting right away.  <\/span>Not only the aurora borealis kept changing but also the moon setting.  <\/span>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.  <\/span>It took less than 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

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When it\u2019s all finished, I sat in my car to playback and enjoyed every moment and single frame of them.  <\/span>I was also very tired and hungry and decided to find a spot to park my car securely to take a nap.  <\/span>I was driving on the ring road again.  <\/span>Moments later to the corner of my eyes I saw a beautiful light to my left side along with the aurora borealis.  <\/span>I was too tired to think and reacted intuitively: stop, park the car, grab the tripod and camera and starting to shoot.  <\/span>After a few shots I finally realized that this is no other light than the dawn.  <\/span>Only by then I looked at my watch and realized sure enough it\u2019s almost 5:30am.  <\/span>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.  <\/span>It\u2019s well worthwhile with such fantastic results.  <\/span>I was smiling while I fell in asleep in my car parked securely at a parking spot that morning.<\/p>\n

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Without a doubt this is the most recognizable and famous mountain at Iceland in this image and it\u2019s the Kirkjufell mountain.  <\/span>There are many elements in this image and let me introduce them.  <\/span>To the lower left corner is a waterfall and opposite to it is a river pouring into the ocean.  <\/span>To the right side the bright spot is moon rising and to the opposite side the bright area is sunset.  <\/span>On top of the Kirkjufell mountain is the aurora borealis.  <\/span>I named this image \u201cSymphony\u201d.  <\/span>The time I took this image is around midnight and the moon just rising and sun just setting.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Iceland is a very beautiful place.  <\/span>There are all kinds of terrain and land formation.  <\/span>I traveled many places and thought I had seen enough waterfalls but stunned by the powerful yet novel waterfalls.  <\/span>Magical sunset light reflects on the crystal ice cubes at the Diamond beach takes breath away.  <\/span>Rich and various volcanic remains and terrain expand our horizons in the power of nature.  <\/span>Aurora borealis meets steep yet assorted land formations making not speechless but absolute awing beauty.  <\/span>Nevertheless, all these bewildering comes with a threat, an enormous threat and that is the weather at Iceland.  <\/span>The weather is unpredictable and temperamental.  <\/span>One of the most dangerous elements in the temperamental weather is the wind.  <\/span>In this image, the sea gull had been trying to take off from the ice to fly away for ten minutes in vain.  <\/span>I stood there for ten minutes just to witness it.  <\/span>This is the first and only time I saw the wind could prevent a bird from flying.  <\/span>Every time the gull\u2019s feet left the ice surface, the wind blew it right back.  <\/span>The gull had no chance.  <\/span>The wind at Iceland doesn\u2019t come from one direction but omnidirectional.  <\/span>In addition to the omnidirectional wind, it\u2019s fierce and strong.  <\/span>I must tilt my entire body in the wind to move around.  <\/span>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!<\/p>\n\n\n

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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 \u201cliving sculpture\u201d and a natural\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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In this second picture, you could also see activities in motion.  The steam was so hot that I couldn\u2019t 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.  <\/p>\n<\/div>

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In the third picture, it\u2019s remains.  If you look carefully, you could see sheep pacing around them.  These are about a house size much larger than the previous ones.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

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In the forth picture, it\u2019s an enormous, gigantic pit.  How big?  I could\u2019t 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nature makes people humble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is a place named \u201cLandmannalaugar\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s a volcanic topography.\u00a0 It took some effort to get through the area.\u00a0 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"blank","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6418","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6418"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6474,"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6418\/revisions\/6474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpanphotography.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}