Iceland - Þingvellir Walls
Þingvellir is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is part of the rift valley that forms the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates and was the historical location of the Althing, Iceland’s parliament established in 930 AD. Its walls include a giant rock where, in years past, the country’s laws were recited from memory to the parliament every year.
For both reasons I wanted to visit it. We walked between the two lava rock walls that forms the main area of Þingvellir (the western wall is the edge of the North American tectonic plate), photographed the waterfall and river that runs through part of it, and wandered around the site.
With the vegetation starting to show the first glimpses of Autumn, I became enamored with the juxtaposition of changing vegetation and basalt walls. These images are a collection of photographs of Þingvellir’s walls.
I guess one of the things that struck me was the diversity of the vegetation we found in the narrow canyon, which was mostly only 30-40 meters wide, if that. Also,I think the fact that some vegetation had changed, and others hadn’t, helped emphasize that diversity.
We got there early (not surprising since we camped within the park), so there were few people there initially (especially nice when we were photographing the waterfall).
We knew there would be people coming (it’s a main tourist attraction, not too far from Reykjavik), so we generally didn’t use our tripods after photographing the falls. It really helped that we didn’t - it made things much easier given the closeness of the subject matter and the fact that the crows came as expected.
Even in the narrowest of areas, we could generally get off to one side or the other and take our time composing an image or two.
In the end, I think Þingvellir surprised both of us in terms of the beauty it had to offer and the photographic opportunities it presented. Despite the crowds.