PODAS Iceland

Hóf Church

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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

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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

Eyjafjallajökull

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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

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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

Jökulsárlón, Clear Ice up Close

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Like I said, there is just something about the clear ice, and as I mentioned in the Iceland PODAS article, we where treated to a zodiac ride in the Jökulsárlón and got to see the icebergs up close, at least the clear ones.

M8, Summicron 35mm ASPH, ISO160 f/5.6 at 1/1500s

M8, Summicron 35mm ASPH, ISO160 f/5.6 at 1/750s

M8, Summicron 35mm ASPH, ISO160 f/5.6 at 1/750s