Category: Landmannalugar

During my trip to Iceland, I was enthralled by the dramatic landscape of Landmannalaugar and fortunate that the road had just opened a few days before my visit. Because it was considered early in the season, there were very few people around. I camped for 4 days, with the main challenge being that I slept during the day. I always wonder why anyone would visit the Arctic during the summer and sleep rather than stay up all night. Except for my travel buddy, I had Landmannalaugar all to myself each night from 8pm until 5am. This is another one of my favorite images that I created after hiking up to the Brennisteinsalda steam vents and photographing the dramatic light on Blahnukur.

I’ve been editing my images from my trip to Iceland the last few days. My regular readers might recall that I was complaining about the dreary weather the entire trip. Just because the conditions are miserable does not mean that there weren’t any photos to be had. Due to my years of photographing Alaska, I am adept at shooting in cloudy conditions. While the general public is happy with blue skies (as I am about to enjoy myself this afternoon), the light that I need to create dramatic photographs requires being willing to work in less than inspiring conditions. For example, consider this image of the Brennisteinsalda steam vents. I created it at the end of a cloudy day in Landmannalaugar when there was no sunset light. I experimented by taking over 200 images of the steam emanating from the ground in order to capture the steam pattern and dark clouds in this the decisive moment.

As my regular readers will note, I experienced mostly gloomy weather during my trip to Iceland. While the bad weather did nothing to overcome my Seasonal Affective Disorder, it did provide me with some incredible lighting conditions for landscape photography. The highlight of my trip was camping and shooting for 4 days at Landmannalaugar. I was disappointed that the colorful hills were covered in ash from the recent eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, but their was still plenty of spectacular scenery to shoot everywhere I looked. I explored the main hiking trails from the campground and became particularly enchanted with the geothermal steam vents at the base of Brennisteinsalda. I returned to this surreal location 2 nights in a row and was rewarded with this dramatic image when the clouds parted and the sun illuminated the summit of Blahnukur in golden light.

Before I went to Iceland, I researched some of the locations that I intended to shoot, but had not paid that much attention to Landmannalaugar (pronounced Land-mann-a-loi-ger). This fantastic location, 4 hours from Rekjavik in the interior of Iceland, was a pleasant surprise. Fortunately, the 4WD road had just opened the week before my visit. After driving the final 40 off-road kilometers, two shallow river beds (with a rental car!) were the final obstacles between me and the scenic beauty that I was about to experience. I always try to get to a new location early enough to scout the area because I don’t like to be rushed, but it was definitely time to shoot once the car was parked. The sky was full of perfect cotton-candy clouds and the sun danced across the jaw-dropping scenery. I grabbed my camera gear and quickly set out to explore the river bed to the east of the campground. Within a half-hour of my arrival, I focused my attention on this composition to create this image.