Iceland - Lake Myvatn - Dimmuborgir Lava Field
Our excursion along the south coast went quicker than we’d expected. Somehow we forgot that Iceland is roughly the same size as Kentucky, so even if we drove only 1-1/2 to 2 hours a day, we’d move quite some ways along the coast - even with the in-and-out, back-and-forth that is driving along fjords. Then again,we were trying to keep ahead of weather and when it caught us, we were at the end of our planned fjord driving (the weather wiped out a 50’ stretch of the Ring Road 2 days after we had passed it) and popped over the mountains into the north to noticeably better weather. With several days to spare (and the reminder that most anywhere we’d already visited really wasn’t that far away) we decided to spend the night at one location we passed over (too many tourists at the time, and not as photographically rewarding as I’d hoped) and then to head over to Lake Myvatn.
During our first pass-through in the Lake Myvatn area, we stopped at the Dimmuborgir lava fields. I didn’t do a post at the time because we’d carried only our point-and-shoot cameras at the time and, as I mentioned at the start of this Iceland series, I was going to focus on using images made with our bigger cameras. This time Ann suggested we carry the heavier cameras on the trails that wander through the lava field, so that’s what we did.
We largely re-traced the same route we walked previously, except we did it backwards this time. That meant the landscape and image potentials were somewhat familiar, and enhanced at times by the fact that the Autumn colors were setting in. Unfortunately, the high winds (we had high wind warnings a few days earlier and again the next day) had knocked the early changing leaves off of many of the trees/bushes, but there was still plenty of foliage left to work with.
We slowly walked the paths, taking our time and feeling in no rush whatsoever. We were largely shielded from the occasional wind gusts by the lava formations and the frequently appearing sun kept us warm despite the very cool temperatures. While there were people around, there was nothing that one would call a crowd, so we could work and wander at our own pace without feeling we were getting in anybody’s way.
That gave us time to really look at different subjects and resulted in a wide variety of image types from a landscape that offered a lot of potential.
The field wanders through a lava formation that was formed over many cycles over different periods, and so offers a range of ground cover, plants and lava formations as subjects. While we were limited to marked trails, it was not “viewpoint photography.”
Over the few hours we were exploring the area, there were long periods where Ann and I would not say anything to each other.
Each of us was engaged in our own photography, occasionally reaching out to the other to discuss a composition or technical question at hand.
The eye would see something, the mind think there may be something there, and then one would get to work to see if there was an image to be made. There was a lot of experimentation and as is the case, some failures and some successes.
Sometimes it would be the vegetation that caught one’s eyes, sometimes the lava formation. It really didn’t matter. It was a rich photographic environment where one could immerse oneself.
All of these images are from the JPG version of the image made, which means very little work was done to them before they were used. I’m anxious to see how several of these appear on my calibrated monitor at home versus my laptop screen. And, I’m looking forward to printing a few.
After nearly 3 hours we’d completed the route we had planned and headed up to the welcome center for a cup of coffee to warm ourselves up. It was a pleasing and successful photography outing.