The Land of Fire & Ice (may not be 56k friendly)
Discussion
Just back from a quick visit Iceland and thought I would share some views with you guys as it truly is a photographers’ and artist’s paradise. Does make for a long post though ;-)
General views
1. Iceland can be kidney donatingly expensive. Stick with the beer as wine is phenomenally expensive
2. Although Icelanders can sometimes appear a bit cold at first meeting this is normally just because they are not confident they can speak your language. Once the ice is broken they are generally really warm and friendly people. Their fear of not being able to speak your language is usually completely unfounded as they have the highest percentage literacy in the developed world and also something crazy like over 90% speak at least 4 languages, often Icelandic, English, Swedish, Danish and then another standby like Italian or French.
3. The landscape is just so vast and inspiring you could stay there for years and still not do it justice
4. They’ve really got something with those hot springs. A good soak after dinner really finishes the day off a treat.
5. If you don’t like the weather / light just stay around for 15 mins and it’ll change in some way.
6. Pick your season very carefully for what you want to experience, e.g. northern lights is really Sept – April, whale are really April – end of Aug, puffins May to early Aug (12 Aug in the north for past 2 – 3 years), June & July for the magical light of the midnight sun.
7. Icelanders play to win and Icelanders are fiercely proud of Iceland. They have made the distinction quite easily between being proud of Iceland but not racist. If you want to go and live there they will welcome you with open arms whatever your race or nationality.
8. They just have the best attitude to public liability i.e. if you’re told not to do something and then you do it and get injured, don’t come crying to me seeking compensation as I told you not to do it in the first place. What a refreshing and sensible viewpoint !
9. It’s quite easy to travel independently around Iceland and it’s a lot nicer than an organised tour.
So on to the pictures. These are taken directly from the cameras and have not had a lot of work done yet. I’ve discovered mine has now got a lot of dust spots and so they are present in these pictures.
1. Landscape
The Landscape in Iceland is just amazing. It’s so vast and dramatic it is difficult to capture on film. The waterfalls are great places to visit and both allow plenty of opportunity for the photographer to take time to compose and either include or exclude the human element. The geysers are great to watch and just all over the place the ground smokes away quietly to itself. Walking over some of the lava fields is humbling when you realise quite how massive they are and the simply huge power of nature that exists in this country.
This picture nicely demonstrates the Icelandic attitude to public liability. You can see a guard rope draped across the very bottom of this picture about 2 feet away from the geyser. There’s a sign saying do not go over the guard ropes as you enter the site, so if you do you’ve only got yourself to blame. Who do you say needs to get closer than 2 feet to a geyser? Apparently some other tourists do but I stood a little further back to get this one. Mrs CVP has a great picture of the geyser where it looks just like a 90 foot c[censored]k. Childish I know but funny nevertheless ;-)
The weather changes very quickly too, the light can be dull and 10 mins later it’s bright and clear. When we arrived at Pingvellier it was a bit overcast and a bit of a wait later – hey presto nice sunlight. The only way to get any feeling of scale was to try and isolate details within the landscape.
Also it can be bright and clear and 10 mins later it’s horizontal rain. This happened to us after we had walked down to see the “Sun Voyager” sculpture. Didn’t turn out that sunny for us, more of a rain lashed sculpture but I like it as a memory of the rain.
One simply superb output of this volcanic activity is the hot springs. All over the place are hot springs you can bathe in. The most famous is the Blue Lagoon out near the airport at Keflavik, but we were lucky to find a smaller more intimate one up near our hotel in the North. It was amazing to sit in a hot spring half way up the hills watching the could come rolling down the hill towards you.
One lucky view for us was the Northern lights this early in the season. We’d come out of dinner and I was cursing carrying around a tripod as it had been useless for the wildlife stuff in the North. We looked into the sky and saw a faint tinge of green and then in two minutes this lovely curve in the sky over Reykjavik. About 5 mins after it started it had faded away to nothing. I never cursed the tripod again ;-)
2. Wildlife
We’d gone to see the whales in the north of Iceland but they had left the week before so I had the opportunity on the boat to do a lot of fulmar photography instead!
Reykjavik also has some bird life living right in the centre of the city. The ducks were bedding down during a cold day and the swan family were bearing down on some kiddies loaded up with food for them.
The horses in Iceland are good subjects as they all seem to have a real 1980’s “Flock of Seagulls” hairdo. Great for a bit of back lighting. However don’t try to get one to come over to you as once they’ve got their head down munching the grass you’ll just be ignored – damn tourists again.
[pic]http://photos.fotango.com/p/eba00470927f00000015.jpg[/pic]
3. Reykjavik
Is quite a nice place but you can see round it in about 2 days (including a few museums etc). Good to walk around, lots of variety of eating places and lots of coffee shops to stop off in to just chill out. An obvious point of focus is the church up on the hill
Icelandic 4*4’s
I’m sure most of us will have seen Clarkson’s tour of Iceland, and they really do have these big 4*4’s for “off roading”. It’s not really off roading as due to the delicate nature of the flora (any damage to the mosses and lichens can last tens if not hundreds of years) you are not allowed to drive off road. However, what some of the mountain “roads” are is really the equivalent to off road. These roads are classified as F roads and you’re not insured if you take a rental car that is not a 4*4 down one of these. You break your Yaris or Corsa on one of these and you have to pay for all the damage.
I’m not a big fan of 4*4’s in the UK but we did a day tour with a company in Iceland called Highlanders (www.hl.is) and their Nissan Patrols are just brilliant
(Yes I now see my camera bag under the car – didn’t see it when framing the picture – time for some PS work)
The Patrol costs about GBP40k and then about another GBP 15-20K is spent upgrading it to make sure it can cope with what gets thrown at it. The Nissan Patrol is now generally preferred over the Defender as it is nearly the same price and is more comfortable and more importantly it is better sealed against water ingress for river crossings!
Down the country gravel roads we were giving it some and it felt like we were drifting around the corners. I suspect this was mainly the flex in the sidewalls of the tyres due to their massive height but it was marvellous fun. We also climbed up a rock slope that I thought we were mad in attempting in the first place but the Nissan just went straight up without any problems. A quick trip onto a glacier confirmed it was just as versatile on ice as well as gravel. In the winter even larger tyres are fitted so that snow trips can be undertaken. These tyres can run at a pressure of less than 1 bar to give even more grip. If I lived over there I’d most certainly have one of these for getting out into the wilderness. If you’re off I’d certainly recommend Highlanders, it’s not cheap but it’s a great day and they are really nice folk.
Overall I cannot be enthusiastic enough about Iceland, it’s a simply magical place to go an explore. You stand there and think “wow” about 10 times a day. We loved this little taster so much that we have already priced up going back in the winter for snow and more northern lights and also again in the summer to see the whales and puffins.
Chris
>>> Edited by CVP on Friday 24th September 12:58
General views
1. Iceland can be kidney donatingly expensive. Stick with the beer as wine is phenomenally expensive
2. Although Icelanders can sometimes appear a bit cold at first meeting this is normally just because they are not confident they can speak your language. Once the ice is broken they are generally really warm and friendly people. Their fear of not being able to speak your language is usually completely unfounded as they have the highest percentage literacy in the developed world and also something crazy like over 90% speak at least 4 languages, often Icelandic, English, Swedish, Danish and then another standby like Italian or French.
3. The landscape is just so vast and inspiring you could stay there for years and still not do it justice
4. They’ve really got something with those hot springs. A good soak after dinner really finishes the day off a treat.
5. If you don’t like the weather / light just stay around for 15 mins and it’ll change in some way.
6. Pick your season very carefully for what you want to experience, e.g. northern lights is really Sept – April, whale are really April – end of Aug, puffins May to early Aug (12 Aug in the north for past 2 – 3 years), June & July for the magical light of the midnight sun.
7. Icelanders play to win and Icelanders are fiercely proud of Iceland. They have made the distinction quite easily between being proud of Iceland but not racist. If you want to go and live there they will welcome you with open arms whatever your race or nationality.
8. They just have the best attitude to public liability i.e. if you’re told not to do something and then you do it and get injured, don’t come crying to me seeking compensation as I told you not to do it in the first place. What a refreshing and sensible viewpoint !
9. It’s quite easy to travel independently around Iceland and it’s a lot nicer than an organised tour.
So on to the pictures. These are taken directly from the cameras and have not had a lot of work done yet. I’ve discovered mine has now got a lot of dust spots and so they are present in these pictures.
1. Landscape
The Landscape in Iceland is just amazing. It’s so vast and dramatic it is difficult to capture on film. The waterfalls are great places to visit and both allow plenty of opportunity for the photographer to take time to compose and either include or exclude the human element. The geysers are great to watch and just all over the place the ground smokes away quietly to itself. Walking over some of the lava fields is humbling when you realise quite how massive they are and the simply huge power of nature that exists in this country.
This picture nicely demonstrates the Icelandic attitude to public liability. You can see a guard rope draped across the very bottom of this picture about 2 feet away from the geyser. There’s a sign saying do not go over the guard ropes as you enter the site, so if you do you’ve only got yourself to blame. Who do you say needs to get closer than 2 feet to a geyser? Apparently some other tourists do but I stood a little further back to get this one. Mrs CVP has a great picture of the geyser where it looks just like a 90 foot c[censored]k. Childish I know but funny nevertheless ;-)
The weather changes very quickly too, the light can be dull and 10 mins later it’s bright and clear. When we arrived at Pingvellier it was a bit overcast and a bit of a wait later – hey presto nice sunlight. The only way to get any feeling of scale was to try and isolate details within the landscape.
Also it can be bright and clear and 10 mins later it’s horizontal rain. This happened to us after we had walked down to see the “Sun Voyager” sculpture. Didn’t turn out that sunny for us, more of a rain lashed sculpture but I like it as a memory of the rain.
One simply superb output of this volcanic activity is the hot springs. All over the place are hot springs you can bathe in. The most famous is the Blue Lagoon out near the airport at Keflavik, but we were lucky to find a smaller more intimate one up near our hotel in the North. It was amazing to sit in a hot spring half way up the hills watching the could come rolling down the hill towards you.
One lucky view for us was the Northern lights this early in the season. We’d come out of dinner and I was cursing carrying around a tripod as it had been useless for the wildlife stuff in the North. We looked into the sky and saw a faint tinge of green and then in two minutes this lovely curve in the sky over Reykjavik. About 5 mins after it started it had faded away to nothing. I never cursed the tripod again ;-)
2. Wildlife
We’d gone to see the whales in the north of Iceland but they had left the week before so I had the opportunity on the boat to do a lot of fulmar photography instead!
Reykjavik also has some bird life living right in the centre of the city. The ducks were bedding down during a cold day and the swan family were bearing down on some kiddies loaded up with food for them.
The horses in Iceland are good subjects as they all seem to have a real 1980’s “Flock of Seagulls” hairdo. Great for a bit of back lighting. However don’t try to get one to come over to you as once they’ve got their head down munching the grass you’ll just be ignored – damn tourists again.
[pic]http://photos.fotango.com/p/eba00470927f00000015.jpg[/pic]
3. Reykjavik
Is quite a nice place but you can see round it in about 2 days (including a few museums etc). Good to walk around, lots of variety of eating places and lots of coffee shops to stop off in to just chill out. An obvious point of focus is the church up on the hill
Icelandic 4*4’s
I’m sure most of us will have seen Clarkson’s tour of Iceland, and they really do have these big 4*4’s for “off roading”. It’s not really off roading as due to the delicate nature of the flora (any damage to the mosses and lichens can last tens if not hundreds of years) you are not allowed to drive off road. However, what some of the mountain “roads” are is really the equivalent to off road. These roads are classified as F roads and you’re not insured if you take a rental car that is not a 4*4 down one of these. You break your Yaris or Corsa on one of these and you have to pay for all the damage.
I’m not a big fan of 4*4’s in the UK but we did a day tour with a company in Iceland called Highlanders (www.hl.is) and their Nissan Patrols are just brilliant
(Yes I now see my camera bag under the car – didn’t see it when framing the picture – time for some PS work)
The Patrol costs about GBP40k and then about another GBP 15-20K is spent upgrading it to make sure it can cope with what gets thrown at it. The Nissan Patrol is now generally preferred over the Defender as it is nearly the same price and is more comfortable and more importantly it is better sealed against water ingress for river crossings!
Down the country gravel roads we were giving it some and it felt like we were drifting around the corners. I suspect this was mainly the flex in the sidewalls of the tyres due to their massive height but it was marvellous fun. We also climbed up a rock slope that I thought we were mad in attempting in the first place but the Nissan just went straight up without any problems. A quick trip onto a glacier confirmed it was just as versatile on ice as well as gravel. In the winter even larger tyres are fitted so that snow trips can be undertaken. These tyres can run at a pressure of less than 1 bar to give even more grip. If I lived over there I’d most certainly have one of these for getting out into the wilderness. If you’re off I’d certainly recommend Highlanders, it’s not cheap but it’s a great day and they are really nice folk.
Overall I cannot be enthusiastic enough about Iceland, it’s a simply magical place to go an explore. You stand there and think “wow” about 10 times a day. We loved this little taster so much that we have already priced up going back in the winter for snow and more northern lights and also again in the summer to see the whales and puffins.
Chris
>>> Edited by CVP on Friday 24th September 12:58
I reckon I could stay there a goodly while before cabin fever set in. Mind you learning Icelandic could be pretty tricky ;D
I also went to Iceland last weekend and would reiterate the above. It's expensive 
, but definitely impressive. We went the other way out East, saw plenty of mountains and waterfalls. Unfortunately I arrived the day after the rest of my group so I wasn't insured on the 4x4. Boy that was hard. I really wanted to drive, particularly off-road and going up and down mountains. The road to the top of Jokulsfel (sic) was awesome, just as you thought you were at the top there was another mountain to climb. Definitely a good place to take photos (if you're really interested you should be able to work out where they are through the profile).
, but definitely impressive. We went the other way out East, saw plenty of mountains and waterfalls. Unfortunately I arrived the day after the rest of my group so I wasn't insured on the 4x4. Boy that was hard. I really wanted to drive, particularly off-road and going up and down mountains. The road to the top of Jokulsfel (sic) was awesome, just as you thought you were at the top there was another mountain to climb. Definitely a good place to take photos (if you're really interested you should be able to work out where they are through the profile).
TomOSmith said:
I also went to Iceland last weekend and would reiterate the above. It's expensive
Tom
Who did you hire your car through?
simpo two said:
Some super shots there CVP. Only problem is that they're a bit hard to see: does Fotango let you post larger images?
No image size option I'm afraid. I'm in the process of moving stuff to a provider where I can get a decent image size. At present I'm thinking pbase could be a good space.
Work's manic after my return so not too much time to do the all important image editing. It's frustrating we've got about 4.5gb worth of pictures to examine, delete the rubbish, edit where necessary etc but not much time to work on it. Frustrating as I think we have a few really good ones that will make great panoramas. Can't do it at work during a break as my poor old machine only has 256k of RAM and the images blow its brains. Have to wait to home and 1GB of RAM and much faster processor which copes nicely.
Chris
Mastiff said:
A really nice post CVP . Thank you very much.
Really like this image
but not sure why?
Looks like a stunning place, you've made me want to go on holiday now!!!
M.
Cheers
It's just outside the big church on the top of the hill. I won't try and spell it as I'll get it very very wrong. There are quite a few statues around the plaza in front of the church and I just liked this image of the statue and the lady sitting together on the bench taking in the view.
I just had to wait a few minutes for people to get out of the way between her & me praying all the time that she didn't look at me or wonder what this strange man was doing pointing a camera in her direction
Chris
Bodo said:
CVP said:
back from ... Iceland
<a href="http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=126000&f=23&h=0">www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=126000&f=23&h=0</a>
toi?
Je pense que oui (hope that's right).
I wore my PH fleecy hat for most of the trip to keep the old bonce warm.
Chris
>> Edited by CVP on Monday 27th September 10:06
gravymaster said:
Excellent photos. I like them all!
Matt
Cheers old chap. Feels like praise coming from you
. I've had a browse round your Thailand ones and they really are most excellent. You really captured what I imagine Thailand is like. I especially liked the images of the monk sleeping, the dressed buddahs and the statue head in the tree. They give this quality of mystery, peace, respect and reverence for the religion. You just reinforced my desire to go and experience Thailand for myself.
Chris
CVP said:
Who did you hire your car through?
We went through [url]www.geysir.is[/url]. We picked up and dropped off in the short term parking bit right next to Keflavic terminal. All good except for the petrol station near the airport refusing all our cards so we couldn't return it with a similar fuel level as we started with, and so got charged (though can't really grumble as we knew we would). I think we went for a RAV-4 manual (please note it's a rental, I'd never buy one but it was cheap and not a Suzuki Jimny) and we ended up with a (obviously American) Mitsubishi Montero (Which I would rate as not awful from a passenger perspective. The observation hatch / sunroof was pretty good for taking pictures from if you didn't feel like getting out or stopping.) Much fun entailed as we F-roaded, went up mountains, deliberate puddle driving, airbourne over crests, through fords and general larging. Commendable.
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