This morning was my fifth time on the black sands of Jökulsárlón and I gave up. I had a look at the beach and saw how little ice there was now, and I didn’t even bother to try. I went for a walk which turned out to be a good thing because it gave me a chance to figure out what the problem is. I think that I’m stuck with the images I’ve seen seen from Jökulsárlón, they have burned in my brain and I’m just trying to recreate them instead of doing my own thing. I’ve seen a lot of great pictures from a lot of iconic places but I’ve never had such issues elsewhere… all I can do is to admit defeat!
I did get some iceberg pictures though, when we drove to Fjallsárlón. The sun refused to cooperate but it was ok for my part anyway, because two years ago we visited this place on the sunny day (observe ”the sunny day” – there was only one on that trip!)
After breakfast, we packed our bags and moved westward. This trip is different from my last trip in that we will spend more time on the highlands, so we will be staying in Hrífunes for the rest of the week, as the location is perfect for doing day trips to the highlands.
We didn’t get very far though when it was observed that we hadn’t taken the lunch bags with us. This is Iceland, so no worries – we stopped at Fjallsárlón again and had a nice shooting session there, while waiting for lunch to arrive. And when it did, we sat down in the beautiful sunshine and felt pretty happy about life!
On the way Hrífunes, we stopped at Svínafellsjökull. Just like last year, I didn’t get anything good done here, but I really tried – I followed the path up, hoping that it could give me an open view towards the mountain on the left side. Alas, no such luck, and the path was very treacherous with a steep drop down to the glacier, at times the sand was gliding under my feet and other times I had to jump over spots were the path had completely eroded. I finally decided that it was just stupid and turned back, with nothing to show for my efforts.
For the evening shoot, we drove to a big waterfall called Fagrifoss. I seemed to have developed a habit of being the first person out of the car, which obviously gives me an advantage in that I have dibs on the best spots. There’s a viewing platform at Fagrifoss and I walked past a good spot to get there, only to realise that the platform didn’t work for me, so I walked back to the first spot only to find that four other photographers were already standing there. My heart dropped but then I saw that nobody was standing in the actual best spot (in my opinion) – I couldn’t believe it! I set up my tripod nearly intertwined with the next one and wondered what the others were doing if they didn’t choose this angle. It turned out that I was the only one who shot with the sun in frame, which explains why the spot was free. It just proves that five photographers can stand with their tripod feet almost touching and get completely different pictures!
