Iceland One-Off - Glacial Shard
One of the most well-known places (at least visually) in Iceland is Diamond Beach. It’s a beach located at the outlet where the Jökulsárón Lagoon (at the foot of Jökulsárón Glacier) empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Large blocks of ice calve off the glacier into the lagoon, slowly melt somewhat and eventually wash out into the ocean. Many of those ice blocks, small and large, wash back up on shore. If you’ve ever seen photographs of clear blocks of ice washed up on a black sand beach, there’s a good chance the photograph was made at Diamond Beach. It’s quite a stunning site. Well, . . . not always.
When Judy, John, Ann and I were there, . . . let’s just say there were probably more fish carcasses than mini-icebergs on the beach. (Before you ask, no we have no idea why there were so many dead fish lying around. We had several theories, nothing based on more than supposition, but I’ll just go with, “They were placed there by aliens after the aliens were finished with their experiments.”). As for the lack of mini-icebergs I attribute that to timing. It seemed to me that you probably want to be on Diamond Beach right around high tide (we weren’t), as the fresh ice blocks wash up to shore with an incoming or just outgoing tide. My suspicion is that the reason there were so few ice blocks was because a lot of them had completely melted (given how far away from the ice blocks the waves were washing up on shore, it had been quite some time since they’d been deposited there). (That still doesn’t explain the fish carcasses.).
There was, however, one giant ice block on the shore bank near the outlet to the ocean. By giant, I mean significantly larger than a person (more like the size of half-a-dozen people . . . and taller). This led to the second, though unsurprising, problem with Diamond Beach - a crowd of people were gathered around the ice block positioning themselves for selfies and group shots. Some would sit on the ice block, others play peek-a-boo around it, others posing like tourists standing in front of the “Welcome to Yellowstone” sign. I can’t blame them, but it’s just not me and is an environment that is not conducive to contemplative artistic effort.
I guess all of the above falls into that category of one should not have any expectations when you go to a potential photography site. I wasn’t foolish enough to think people wouldn’t be around - the place is just too popular - but I had hopes that, despite the crowds, I might get some nice photos of mini-icebergs and black sand beaches through careful framing (read: exclusion of the people around). The lack of mini-icebergs shot that expectation to hell.
Still, one works with what one has. So as I was standing there, just watching the human spectacle and trying to figure out just what I thought of it all, my eye caught a shard about 5 feet off the ground on the other side of the ice block where everyone kept making their pictures. I wondered if I shot upwards towards the shard, whether the lighting would be interesting and whether I could exclude the distracting background (and people around). Eventually I thought, “Why not try?” I pulled out my phone, walked up, took a quick photo and then walked away. As I looked at it, I realized there was some real potential, so I pulled out the point-and-shoot, and waited, and waited while multiple people would gather in front of and on the ice block for group photos. Finally, as one group disbanded I strode towards the block as another group started forming, quickly composed my image, half-shutter depress to focus, then snap, snap, snap, snap. Then walked away.
The four exposures took two seconds. The whole process probably took four seconds, if that.
I think The Rolling Stones had it right, you can’t always get what you want.