All images © 2007-2013 Aaron Meyers
I spent almost 2 weeks in Iceland with 6 friends: 5 of whom were not photographers. This meant that rather than following the weather, like I would have preferred, we followed our itinerary instead. Mama Nature had the perfect chance to attach a rope between our RV and the rain clouds and boy did she take advantage. It wasn’t until 9 days into our trip that I finally saw the sun. The first 8 days were filled with rain, fog, more rain, more fog, and grey grey sky. Fortunately the last 2 nights ended quite spectacularly. There’s a few places in Iceland that photographers love and Kirkjufell Mountain is one of them. Of course it was high on my list of places to visit and we saved it for almost last. We arrived at Grundarfjörður, the town next to the mountain, parked the RV in their marina and made dinner. Dinner seemed to last for hours. Every few minutes I would get up, look at where the sun is, and say “guys, can we hurry up?!” Of course the non-photographers responded with “relax, it’ll be fine!” Finally I jumped into the drivers seat, told everyone to hold on, and drove us over to the spot. Surprisingly, this view is right off the road (you can, in fact, see the road at the bottom of the mountain) and offers countless compositions. As we arrived though, the clouds started to thin out and it forced our compositions to move to the left, towards the 3-pronged waterfall and the bridge. Fortunately the sky lit up beautifully long enough for us to snap a few photos. About 20 minutes after this photo was taken, a marine layer moved in, the clouds disappeared, and the beautiful sunset was gone. Thanks, Mama Nature, for a yummy bit of dessert! I loved the way the mountain looks like a witches hat while the waterfall and river brew below it. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/9, 1/6 sec, ISO 100
With so many of Iceland’s tourist attractions right off its “Ring Road” some visitors never leave the convenience of Iceland’s most major roadway. Iceland’s interior, however, is arguably the most beautiful part of Iceland. Getting off the Ring Road isn’t always easy: bridge don’t exist, rivers must be forded, food and water brought in, and hiking involved. Landmannalaugar (pronounced Land-manna-lo-ger) is one of those places that is worth all the effort it takes to get here. Multicolored rhyolite mountains, expansive lava fields, and snow make for a beautiful spectrum of pink, red, brown, green, yellow, black, and white. Snow fills in many of the gaps in the wavy hills. Getting to Landmannalaugar requires traveling on an “F Road”, not usually accessible by a 2 wheel drive vehicle. From the east, the more scenic route along F225 requires many river crosses, some of them fairly deep. Slightly to the north, F208 (which can be done, slowly, in a regular car), requires no river crossings but can be a bit bumpy and is a far less scenic drive along the power line road. Not wanting to risk a flat tire or a ruined car at the end of our trip I opted to take the less scenic F208 road into the interior. At one point we didn’t see another car for over an hour (which was slightly creepy!) Sammi and I arrived around 1pm and spent the afternoon exploring some of the more popular hikes. When the sun would peek out from behind the clouds it would light up the hills with beautiful color and brought out the contrast with the snow pockets. We left Landmannalaugar in the evening, drove to the Golden Circle and ate delicious reindeer burgers. Having kept a super busy schedule for the past 2 weeks, we found ourselves shocked that it was 8:30pm and we had absolutely no plans. A layer of fog was creeping its way into the Golden Circle but back by Landmannalaugar looked clear. Sammi looked at me and said “you’re going to regret not going back if you don’t go!” Back in the car and to Landmannalaugar we went. Boy am I glad we went back - another killer sunset! I debated long and hard about this composition: the hill in the foreground blocks some of the mountains but also provides a nice line into the photo thanks to the crack. When I moved around the hill to avoid blocking the mountains, the photo felt empty so back to the cracked hill I went. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 70mm, f/9, 1/400 sec, ISO 200
