Fini Iceland: To be revisited

It was a long task in the same direction, but I have reached the end of more than two hundred photographs from Iceland. Not all are spectacular, maybe not even particularly good, but then some of them are gems. This may seem self-serving, but the further along I get with this photographic journey, the more I realize that I capture these images because they call to me. That they might speak to you brings added joy. I think that is a worthy discovery; when I am out and about with my camera, I am in the joy zone. Not bad for a guy with a sometimes sardonic sense of humor!

In my opinion, some of the variability in quality was probably due to the variability in subject matter. The photos capture a range of landscape, travel, and fine-art material. I haven't bothered to categorize them, that should be obvious, but the ones presented are culled from more than three thousand frames. As you can see, I had my work cut out for me! In the Iceland collection, photos are arranged in temporal order; thus it may be possible to detect an evolution in my reactions to Iceland as the tour progressed. Here, I chose to share a few of my favorites from the last half of the trip.

Iceland Light

One of Iceland's stunning features I found intriguing was the way the light would change throughout the day. Along a western fjord, partly cloudy skies caused "pops" of sunlight to illuminate the soft yellow-green slopes as seen in Iceland Light. High latitudes lead to a low angle of incidence resulting in warmer, red-shifted, light, as in a sunset, for example. This photograph has nice features for a travel shot, steep cliffs, flashes of muted color, a road, water, and a moody sky, but it also has something more. Most popular photographs exhibit highly saturated colors that can be breathtaking or even "over the top." Rarely do we perceive the "real" world with comparable vivid dimension and thus, for an image to be special, we come to expect or even prefer saturation in pictures that appeal to us on Facebook or Instagram; thus we overlook the exquisite beauty in the "mundane" surroundings of our everyday lives. How sad. Can we only experience joy when transported to some exotic location? Our spirits crave escape from banality, yet beauty, in the eye of the beholder, surrounds us everywhere. Some might not care for the image above, lacking as it is in "eye-popping saturation," but in my opinion, it represents quintessential Iceland. It makes me inwardly groan with wonder at a scene I find sublimely beautiful and it recalls to me the inexplicable joy I felt as I was abruptly seduced by the warm rays of sun kissing the distant slopes. True and good, at least for me, your mileage may vary.

Alone Beside a Lonely Sea

Often a photo tour can be very busy, but arriving at the town of Vik on the southern coast, we had time to stroll around before dining. Have you ever noticed that when you've been around people for an extended period of time, even if they are good friends and you enjoy their company, there comes a time when you just need to be alone? Wandering, I was. Happy. No goal in mind. My steps turned toward the spectacular black sand beach and unusual coastal rock formations. And there, I found myself, indeed Alone Beside a Lonely Sea. The mist, vaporized above the roiling waves, hung in the air and there I spied the silhouette of a lone figure. Alone, but not lonely, I was joyous to be able to stand in this place, at this time, and to be enthralled, really overcome as I remember, by the beauty surrounding me. A funny thing happens to our vision as light diminishes. Rods and cones and all that! Remember this the next time you spurn a monochrome, an unsaturated photograph: Colors disappear and we are left with black and white. What a metaphor! Either or. My way or the highway. Them or us. Form and line. Right or wrong. You get the idea. In photography, absent color, some believe we are left with the essence of a subject, boiled down into its shape, positioning, and luminosity. In some respects, the subject transcends the distraction of color. I could see myself in this image, alone, but not lonely, joyous beside a lonely sea. Maybe I sense something primal here; a lost relationship from when our ancestors crawled out of the oceans in eons past. I, alone, but not lonely. The sea? Perhaps it is lonely; maybe that is why it draws us to itself, to re-engage with that which is lost. The Good Book speaks of "deep, calling unto deep." Crying out for connection, to re-engage; with ourselves, others, nature, yes, even our Creator. You know this: Sometimes, it is good to be alone. Sometimes we need to see the essence of things, to figure stuff out, to wonder at the immensity of Creation... Alone, night had come, I headed "home" to dinner with my friends.

Near Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon

Known as the land of fire and ice, Iceland delights the eye with strange and unexpected visions. Among them, icebergs in a kaleidoscope of bizarre shapes and sizes, but I must confess I've seen so many "berg shots" that the challenge was to capture something different, something that would tell a story. A story beyond trivial, beyond imagined animal forms, I was looking for "a thousand words." This odd floater has persisted for at least a year or two; I've seen numerous photographs of it over that time and realized, however, that I had never seen a shot including a sense of place, the context in which the iceberg exists. When I noticed the distant slopes, I knew I had found my shot. As big as a small warehouse, the huge ice formation floating in the lake is as nothing compared to the masses of glacial ice flowing behind it and from which, it derives. Such raw power, creating such beauty: Context is everything. Fire and ice. The rocks, forged in Vulcan's fire, cooled and sculpted by the ice, become the land. The ice flows to the sea, out of which life comes to cover the land with more life. Fire and ice. Beginnings. Origins. Cycles of life. We, each of us, are forged and shaped by the contexts from which we emerge, scarred and gritty, oddly beautiful. Maybe not a thousand words, but at least a few thoughts...

First to Unfurl

Iceland is full of surprises, serendipity, the unexpected. At the black sand beach to the west of Vik, well up on the wall of a cave, this little still-life gobsmacked my eyes. It was as if an unseen hand had placed it just so, one blossom fully opened, the rest not quite. Promises for the future. Part of photography is being open to serendipity, maybe even expecting it to grace your path. Soft light, soft stones, soft leaves, grace unfurled before my lens.

Sea and Ice Sublimation

Our last day in Iceland, we rose early to photograph the beach at Jokulsarlon glacial lagoon. I could hardly wait. It was littered with a million gleaming pieces of ice diamonds that had washed ashore! Some were reminiscent of animals, others formed abstract arrangements, all were gleaming jewels in the rising sun, sparkling with potential, bathed by waves breaking on shore. I was fascinated with these mini-bergs and the slow shutter speed that juxtaposed their solid brilliance against the moving water. I captured several different compositions. I will return to Iceland and hope you've enjoyed these short vignettes; perhaps some of these photographs may have spoken to you. I hope so. Most of all I wish you a very merry Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanza, or whatever, and best wishes for a great new year!