Outdoors

But often camping out is real fun too !

Boring ... !

At times all this overwhelming natural beauty is just too much for the teenage crowd. Give them Netlog, MSN, Stardoll and Tribal Wars any time! But another waterfall ... Jeez!

Skogafoss

Yet another "foss". We've seen quite a few of them on our Iceland trip. Skogafoss is one of the best as you can get down to the very base of the waterfall (and take an energetic shower if you like). We were lucky: no crowds. Only a few scattered visitors. I took my Bronica behind my back as close as I could to the thundering mass of water. The drops on the lens created a halo effect not unlike a Holga.

Tri-X pushed

Meanwhile I have my 6x4.5 negs back from the lab. I am very satisfied by the very scrupulous handling of the material by Photostudio 13 in Stuttgart. They are doing a superb job.

This is 320 Tri-X which has been pushed one good stop to 800 asa. Hence there is an increase in grain and a decrease in contrast. I had good results with that last year in Rome and I thought it would work well in Iceland too. It is now clear that I will have two very different sets of images: the clean, square negs on chromogenic film and the more gritty stuff on the pushed Tri-X. Not sure whether I will be able to weave them in a single portfolio that makes sense.

Above is an image taken on the Faeroer islands where we spent a couple of days on our way to Iceland. We had pretty sombre weather, with lots of rain and very low cloud cover. On the picture is a salmon farm in a cold, foggy fjord in the northern archipelago. The muted tones and the grain work well here. Again it's a very simple, sober image that connects with the other images I'd like to collate in a portfolio.

[Oops, I notice lots of artefacts in the jpg. Not sure why that is ... I'll post another copy of the image when I have a handle on this problem]

Vatna

One of the mighty glacier tongues descending from the Vatnajökull, Europe's largest glaciated area. I have been interested for quite a while in the work of Axel Hütte and this picture comes close to a number of images in the former part of his "North-South" project.

Quiet

A quiet morning, after a rainy night. I took this shot virtually from out of the tent. We were standing close to a lagoon on the southwest coast of Iceland. It was dead still. Only two ducks disturbed the perfect mirroring of the sky in the water. Again, the superachromat shines.

Heap

Talk about sober, graphic images. In some way, although it's a man-made structure, this heap of gravel captures something of the essence of the Icelandic landscape. Taken with the SWC on Ilford XP2, post-processed in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Dettifoss II

Another picture of Dettifoss, this time only suggesting the mighty falls by the cloud of spray hanging above the precipice. Again an Hasselblad image.

I have taken to using the Nik Software Silver Efex Pro which provides a range of ready-to-use filters to apply to B&W images. In addition it builds on the U Point technology that was introduced by Nikon Capture Pro NX. It seems to be powerful and easy to use. I have as yet only played around with the standard filters though.

Back from Iceland

We're back from Iceland. It was a good trip, covering more than 3000km on the island. The weather was predictably variable, with a good dose of rain and cool (to very cool) temperatures. I love the radical purity of this land. Its ruthless minerality attracts me enormously, feels even (despite the barrenness) a bit like home. We did a lot of the must-see sights - lots of falls, cliffs, canyons and desertlike highlands. Perhaps a little bit too much of "places to go" instead of "places to be". But we've got a good grasp now of the general layout of the island and we know where to go for deeper, more serious explorations.

In terms of photo opportunities I can't complain. I shot around 600 medium format frames, 60% of which with the 6x4.5 Bronica (on 220 rolls of 320 Tri-X, pushed to 800 asa) and the rest with the Hasselblad set (on chromogenic B&W emulsions, both Fuji and Ilford). The C41 stuff has already been developed and at first sight the results are promising. But the project will come out differently from what I first thought. Rather than a family travelogue I think it will be a more sober, more graphic collection of images.

Above is the first scan of the series. It's somewhat a cliché picture of Dettifoss, one of Iceland's key attractions, but I like it nevertheless. We rose at 6am that morning in order to be at the falls before the throngs. That worked out fine. We had the whole spot almost to ourselves. I love the rough, crayon-like texture of the image. The Ilford XP2 delivers a surprisingly attractive grain. The picture was taken with the 250mm Superachromat tele at a shutter speed of 1/2 s (with a handheld 8x neutral gray filter in front of the lens). More to come in the next couple of days.