Mysterious Face

Iceland, near the Black Sand Beach 

Just noticed what appears to be a face in the iceberg...hhmmmm.....

Iceland, Farm Tools

Farm Tools, Iceland

This is the inside of an old farm building in Iceland. No windows - had to straddle my tripod over the door frame and sit on a stool outside to make this image happen - the only light was from the door so a three exposure HDR was necessary.

Iceland Panoramic 2

Iceland Landscape Panoramic 2

Iceland never fails to amaze me. You are driving down a two lane road on a one of the most perfect days and, wallah, you are confronted with the sheer beauty of nature. You can see the road to the upper right of this image - look for the yellow poles.

Iceland, Faces in the Pool

Iceland, Face in the Pool

'All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was'.......Toni Morrison

Iceland, Jokulsarion Glacier

Jokulsarion Glacier

'The poetry of the earth is never dead'.........John Keats

Iceland, Black Sand Beach

Black Sand Beach, Iceland

This image is from the Black Sand Beach which lives in the shadow of the Jokulsarion Glacier in the southeast corner of Iceland. The ice structures on the beach are from the glacier lagoon which is about 300 yards from the beach. The ice floats about in the lagoon and eventually breaks into smaller pieces which the tide carries out into the ocean. The waves then push these pieces back on to the black sand beach where we photographers get to make images such as the one posted today....there are endless photographic possibilities in Iceland....

Icelandic Horse

Icelandic Horse

Sometimes there are just no words to describe an image.......This one fits that description...

Iceland, Hraunfossar Falls

Hraunfossar Falls, Iceland

'I believe in God, only I spell it Nature'.......Frank Lloyd Wright

Iceland, Glacier Lagoon

Glacier Lagoon, Iceland

This is another image from the Glacier Lagoon in Iceland. As always in the background is the Jokulsarion Glacier. On this particular trip we spent two days exploring the Glacier and the Black Sand Beach about 300 yards behind where I stood for today's image.

A side note about Jokulsarion was part of several movies, A View to Kill, Die Another Day and Batman Begins. There a car chase scene that appeared in Die Another Day shot at this location - it was deemed the greatest movie car chase of all times - they used a Jaguar and an Aston Martin.

Image re-processed using Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6. I am enjoying the parametric quality of the development module sliders in LR4 - it allows for really good separation in the highlight and shadow areas.

Iceland, Sleeping Bear-berg

Iceland, Sleeping Bear-berg

A few of my last blogs talked about the Jokulsarion Glacier and Black Sand Beach in Southeastern Iceland. I mentioned that on the lagoon the icebergs collide and break into smaller pieces before floating out to the Atlantic Ocean. This one, which appears to be a sleeping bear is exactly what I was talking about.They come in all sizes and shapes and are just one of the marvelous mysteries of Iceland.

This 'bear' floated about 300 yards out into the Atlantic Ocean before the tides pushed  the structure back to just offshore of the black sand beach. Moments after making this image the iceberg split apart and was carried off into the ocean...

I re-processed this image in Lightroom 4 with its many added features in the development module, specifically the shadow, clarity and highlight sliders...

Iceland - Black Sand Beach

Iceland - Black Sandy Beach with Vatnajökull in the distance,

Another image from Iceland. My last post was the Jokulsarion Lagoon. Today's post is very close by that location. As the icebergs are floating on the lagoon, they will, over time, collide with other icebergs and break into smaller pieces. With the tide current on any given day these structures start floating out into the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean waves then carry the icebergs back into land where you can find them on the black sand beach about 200 yards from the lagoon.

In the background of this image is Vatnajökull, which is the largest glacier in Iceland and covers more then 8% of the country. At one point this glacier existed right next to the Atlantic Ocean. Over the  years the glacier has receded causing the melting ice to form the lagoon...

Jokulsarion Glacier, Iceland

Sunrise, Jokulsarion Glacier, Southeastern Iceland

'I've walked a lot in the mountains in Iceland. And as you come to a new valley, as you come to a new landscape, you have a certain view. If you stand still, the landscape doesn't necessarily tell you how big it is. It doesn't really tell you what you're looking at. The moment you start to move the mountain starts to move'.........Unknown Artist

Gullfuss Waterfall, Iceland

Gullfoss Waterfall, Iceland

This image is from last July at the Gullfoss Waterfall in Iceland. Gullfoss is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iceland, and, apparently, on this day, a place to take wedding images in the rain.

We had just finished quite a fairly miserable shooting day due to wind and lots of rain. Sitting in the car trying to stay dry looking over the falls we noticed this wedding party....Being a photographer, even in the wind and the rain,  how could you just sit there and pass this scene up - SO. my friend Michael Pressman and I grabbed our cameras and went and joined the wedding party - grabbed a few frames and jumped back in the car. No one said a word...

I just remembered this image today and decided it was time to let it out of the hard drive....those two are not even feeling the weather.....

The Road and the Sky.....

'I'm just rolling away from yesterday
Behind the wheel of a stolen Chevrolet
I'm going to get a little higher
And see if I can hot-wire reality'...Jackson Browne

Reynisdrangar, Vik, Iceland

'You don't take a good photograph, you make it'.......Ansel Adams

Red Church, Iceland

Red Church, Iceland

This image is from two years back on my first trip to Iceland. On this day it was off and on rain with a few moments of decent light when the rain would stop. This image, posted today, was made through the bus window during a particularly hard rain using my Canon 5DMKII. This was the first time I realized if you kept your lens wide open most of the moisture on the window would not be apparent in the final photograph. Point in fact it actually made the image appear soft and, and for lack of a better word, semi foggy....which I think actually made the image work.

There are times when I get into thinking images always need to be sharp and have a full dynamic range - I might need to get over that....

I was able to process this image in a way that worked for me using Photoshop CS6 Beta, NIK Color EFX Pro4 and Lightroom4.

Iceland, Jokulsarion Glacier Lagoon

Sunrise, Jokulsarion Glacier Lagoon

'To Live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong'....Joseph Chilton Pearce

Iceland - Jokulsarion Galcier 2

Jokulsarion Glacier 2

'The glacier was God's great plough set at work ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of the earth'...Louis Agassiz

Iceland - Jokulsarion Glacier

Sunrise, Jokulsarion Glacier, Iceland

'Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative'.....H.G. Wells

Iceland Waterfall - Gullfoss

Gullfoss, Iceland

'Photography is not a sport. It has no rules. Everything must be tried'....Bil Brandt

The header image is from an industrial thermal energy site near Reykjavik....One just walks around these industrial sites - no fences, no guard, good service.....