Hóf Church

in

Hóf is a small community east of Skaftafell on the southern side of Vatnajökull. The church's construction is a bit special. Two of the walls are made from chunks of peat, and the other two from planks; while peat was a cheap, readily available building material, wood was quite the oposite. According to my guide book the, church was built in 1883 and churches like this used to be quite common in Iceland. Today there are only a few left. 

M8, Summicron 35mm, f/5.6 at 1/750s, IR filter and lens flare

Vik Church revisited

in

Here is another shot from the Iceland PODAS workshop. I posted an image of Vik church  on 6 December last year. It was taken from a different angle and with an 80mm lens. This is taken with a 300mm lens, and the impression is quite different. The narrow angle of view of the telephoto lens "compresses" the image; most of the hillside behind the church can also be seen in the image I posted on 6 December.

PhaseOne 645DF, IQ180 and a 300mm (curtesy of Peter Eastway) - f/5.6 at 1/320s

Snow

in

A couple of days prior to this shot, we had a light snowfall. The temperature was around -5˚C and the snow was light and almost like powder. Just after it stopped snowing the wind picked up and created these patterns. Note the blueish tone of the shadows lit by a clear blue sky, whereas the sunlit areas have a warmer tone due to the low angle of the sun.

White balance set to Daylight, shot 1 hour before sunset early February.

A little more Fog and Snow

in

Here is another shot from the series of fog and snow shots I have been posting lately. The fog was lifting and there was a slight glow from the sunset over the tree line. I decided to keep the shot out of focus to preserve some of the mood from the shots earlier in the series; the in focus version failed to convey the mood of the scene the way I wanted.

Tintype

in

As I have mentioned earlier, in this day and age old techniques like wet plate photography seems exotic and alluring. Perhaps it is the flaws, or uncertainty of the process, which lends the images a quality closer to a work of art than a photograph. Here is another example I found on Vimeo. Long exposure are required, so note the supports which are meant to help the model keep still and in position.

Nacreous Clouds

in

We have had a spot of cold weather again with temperatures dropping to -16˚C (3˚F) during the night. One afternoon, as the sun was setting, some features started to appear which indicated that nacreous clouds could be present. Nacreous clouds, or "mother of pearl" clouds, are a type of clouds forming in the stratosphere at altitudes above 15000m, and just after sunset they reflect the sunlight and appear to be glowing as patches of mother of perl. I grabbed my camera and rushed of gambling on my hunch being correct. Perhaps not the most spectacular specimen, but at least I did not make the trip in vain. Hope you like it.

Nacreous clouds, or Polar Stratospheric Clouds.

Eyjafjallajökull

in

Here is another shot from the Iceland PODAS. The glacier in the background is Eyjafjallajökull. I May 2010 flights all over Europe where grounded due to the ash-cloud spreading from the volcanic eruption here. The fields and the farm at the foot of the mountain was covered in a thick layer of volcanic ash. Two years later there are hardly any traces of the ash left.

M8 Summicron 35mm, ISO160 f/5.6 at 1/750s - two shots stitched in PhotoShop

Iceland, en route Vatnajökull

in

On the road with the PODAS outfit on our way to Vatnajökull, we drove across this desolate stretch of road crossing the Skeiđarársandur. A stark contrast from the grass covered slopes a few kilometers to the west and east of the sandur. 

The Skeiđarársandur is a floodplain south of the Skeiđarárjökull, a branch of the Vantnajökull complex, and eruptions from the subglacial volcano Grimsvötn often causes a jökulhlaup, or a glacial flood. The lavaflow will melt the ice over and around the volcano, and at some point the water will force its way under the ice and gush out under the glacier front. Water and huge chunks of ice will sweep away anything in it way like for example bridges and power lines. There was an eruption at Grímsvötn in May 2010, preceded by a jökulhlaup in the autumn 2009 which took out a couple of bridges. The last big jökulhlaup happened in 1996. 

M8, Summicron 35mm ASPH, ISO160 f/5.6 at 1/1000s

M8, Summicron 35mm ASPH, ISO160 f/5.6 at 1/500s