Sunset over the fjords
One of the things that will impress most people when going to Iceland is the long sunsets that during this time of year seem to last forever. Add to that some beautiful skies with big fluffy clouds and it’s a photographer’s dream place!
The best sunset I witnessed while I was there was when I was in the North-West of the country in a place called the Westfjords. I was driving back from Krossnes (where the previous shot I posted was taken) and as midnight approached the sky cleared up and the sky looked like it was on fire. I pulled over when the sun went behind the mountains and spent about an hour just photographic the landscape.
I’ll probably post a couple more shots with this sunset, but I thought I’ll begin by posting a panorama of the place to give you a feel for how it all looked. The panorama is made out of 3 shots stitched together in Photoshop. I then used a few curves to bring out the colours in the sky and lighten the foreground just slightly.
One interesting fact about this photo is that to the right (where the snow covered mountain dips a bit) you can spot Drangajökull, Iceland’s northernmost glacier in the Hornstrandir Peninsula. As always when I post a panorama, I really recommend seeing the large version here.
Europe, Iceland
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Hot pool at the end of the world
A few weeks before leaving to Iceland, a friend of mine told me she read that Icelandic people are the happiest people in the world. I looked into it… It seems a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit found Iceland to be the world’s most peaceful place. It has no army and the lowest ratio of people in jail. It was also declared the world’s most developed country and the life-expectancy for men is the highest in the world!
So I had to see this with my own eyes and after seeing some of the landscapes here and the happy people that inhabit this land it must be true. How can you not be the happiest people in the world when you come up with ideas like in the photo below. As you might or might not know Iceland is full of geothermal springs and one of the favourite pastimes here is to sit in a hot pool while the outside temperature is anything from -20 to 20 degrees.
The pool below is located in the remote Icelandic Westfjords in a place called Krossnes and this is basically the end of the road. You can’t drive any further West or North from here and the pool is right on the beach. When I was in the pool the temperature outside was about 7 degrees Celsius and the sea temperature about the same. You have to realize that this is just about 50km south of the Arctic Circle! You just can’t describe the feeling of chilling in the hot pool while the cold waves are breaking on the beach!
Europe, Iceland
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Gullfoss #1
First of all, I just wanted to mention that today my blog turns 3 years. It has been a great tool that helped me improve my photography and share with you some of my travels. So, I would like to thank all of you that visit regularly and here’s to a new year of travels and photography!
Because tomorrow I start driving around Iceland (keeping mostly along the coastline) yesterday I wanted to explore a bit of the countryside seeing the three main attractions around Reykjavik, which are also referred to as the “Golden Circle”. These are the national park Þingvellir, the waterfall Gullfoss and the valley of Haukadalur, where the geysers Geysir and Strokkur are located.
Below is a shot of the waterfall Gullfoss (which in Icelandic means the “golden falls”), which is one of the most impressive sites I’ve ever seen. It’s located on the river Hvítá and it’s actually made of two consecutive stages, one 11m high and the other 21m high. Although the water plunges into a 32m crevice, from certain angles it just looks like the river is disappearing underneath the ground.
The photograph was taken at 12:30am (yes, past midnight!) when the sun had just set. It’s not an easy place to photograph because of all the water spray being blown by the wind and I had to wipe my lenses quite a few times until I got the shots I was looking for.
I’ve got quite a few other photographs of this waterfall, which I will post in the coming weeks, but this one is probably my favourite. I would love to hear what you think about it.
Europe, Iceland
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