Photographing Iceland - Iceland Photographer

IcelandIceland PhotographerIceland Photography

22 Jan

Driving around Iceland is like driving around fairy-land. I’ve shown many photos from this trip, but this blog I am focused on the nature photos (which I rarely show) and a few photos of myself in Iceland.

My friend and I rented a small van to drive around the ring road. We did not have enough days(7 days) for the whole ring road with lots of stopping, so we had to take a short cut. We brought too much stuff, so the van came in handy. It served as a lunch spot and a dressing room. We spent most of the days driving. Good playlists crucial.

Gear:

This part is for camera nerds- I know that a back up camera takes up space, but can you imagine not having a camera at all, In Iceland? Screw that! I had one shit the bed on me once for no good reason, a perfectly nice Nikon expensive ass camera. The 70-200 lens came in handy to get great distance from a waterfall, but is so huge and heavy - I would just bring the 85 with a rain bag and a protective filter. I so rarely needed the 24mm, so this time I would stick to the 35 mm and stitch an image together if I have to. Two bodies and two lenses the 35 and 85 would be all I would bring. Also two rain bags, lots of lens cloth, UV filters if your scared, and all of the memory cards that are backed up- because I would leave my lap top at home. I spend enough time shooting and shooting with my phone, the editing can wait until I get home.

We went to Iceland in October. As we drove, the landscape and weather would both change quickly and dramatically. We saw glaciers, mountains, storms, sunshine, rainbows, waterfalls, Icelandic horses, sheep, old farmhouses, and unicorns. We got to see the Northern Lights from a hot tub, no words for that experience!

Some of my favorite stops in Iceland were as follows (these are all useful links)

THE SECRET LAGOON - totally rad hot springs with cool medieval looking bunker. I liked the Blue Lagoon, but I liked this one better.

Sólheimasandur Plane Crash - By far my favorite. It’’s an hour walk on flat ground on black sand -each way, be careful it doesn’t get dark on you. That links to directions to find the place.

The town of Vic - you can spend some days here as there are such cool things surrounding it. The best thing I saw was something we did not find on google, but asking a local. It was a little mountain near Vic that you can walk up in 20 minutes and find some very simple cool as shit Viking ruins. RAD.

Reykjadalur Valley - A WARM RIVER, WHAAAAAAA?? That’s right. It was over an hour to get to if I remember right, but so beautiful. I did’t know a warm river existed!

Kaffi Vinyl - a vegan restaurant that plays records, it was delicious and fun! We only spent our last night in the city so I don’t have a lot of advice there.

Gljúfrabúi waterfall - what a secret waterfall in a cave, next to a more popular busy waterfall? Heck yes.