All images © 2007-2013 Aaron Meyers
Without a doubt my favorite part of our 2 weeks in Iceland was the “ice-beach”. Over at Jökulsárlón (pronounced Yo-cool-sar-lon) the lake is created as the Vatnajökull glacier melts. Ice-bergs float along the lagoon before passing through a channel into the Atlantic Ocean. The waves break down the icebergs into smaller chunks and then wash onto the black lava sand beach. At low tide smaller chunks wash ashore and at high tide the beach is blocked up with larger icebergs. We arrived at the Jökulsárlón Ice-Lagoon as a storm began to brew. Colby Brown was teaching a workshop of eager students and I had a really nice chat with him before I made my way over to the beach. The low tide meant that I could get down into the water, close to some of the smaller pieces of iceberg. I waited until a wave came up to the ice and then started firing away. I loved the way the water and the ice danced together over the black sand beach. Because the ice is so cold is is free of most air-bubbles. Additionally, silt from the nearby mountains gives the icebergs an amazing blue color. At one point the glacier touched the Atlantic Ocean but since 1970 has retreated almost a mile inland, creating this 7 square mile lagoon. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/11, 1.3 sec, ISO 100
After 7 straight days of being wet I can’t even begin to describe how great a feeling it was to arrive at Godafoss and to be *dry*. Even getting this close to the waterfall didn’t get me wet like many of the other falls I visited in Iceland. The rain had finally stopped earlier in the evening when Andy exclaimed “I’m going to Godafoss while it’s dry — who wants to come?!” I think we left our campsite sometime around 11pm and spent almost 2 hours at the waterfall. Iceland doesn’t believe in installing railings like we do in the United States. Perhaps they just don’t care if people die, or because there’s no railings, people aren’t as dumb. Perhaps people in the US just really are more dumb? There’s nothing preventing you from going right to the edge of the waterfall, as you can see in the upper left and most of us did exactly that! I decided, however, that I would stay below the falls and shoot it from down below. I loved the way that Godafoss curves around in a bowl shape. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/14, 30 sec, ISO 100
