Winter can be very nice, but I needed a little hint of summer. I shot this image last summer. I was setting up the tripod and the camera when I noticed the bumble bee lifting from the flowers on the left. What I wanted was to have the bee on the flowers or near them. But after waiting for quite some time I gave up and settled for this one.
This is one of shots from the final day of the PhaseOne PODAS workshop in Iceland. We stopped to shoot a waterfall, but I found this scene more interesting. Near the top of the mountain ridge basalt columns, the ever present sign of volcanic activity, form amazing patterns. To me this is the cliché of the rural part of Iceland I have visited - mans presence dwarfed by the overwhelming nature, shaped by volcanic activity and worn down by the forces of the weather.
PhaseOne 645DF, IQ160, Schneider Kreuznach LS 80mm f/2.8 - f/10 at 1/80s
“I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs”
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
Here is an image from a couple of years back. It was bitterly cold and ice crystals form from a fog that rolled in. The ice crystals covered the ground like a dry powder which reflected the sunlight in a fascinating way.
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
One of the images I posted last week was from Eyjafjallajökul, shot during the Iceland PODAS. Here is a video by Sean Stiegemeier from the eruption in 2010. You may find Seans comments on the making of the video on Vimeo.
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.
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.
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.
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.
