joseramos

Death Falls

"Death Falls"

Massive amounts of extremely turbulent waters suddenly meet the endless abyss of Dettifoss, with liquid chaos ensuing right...
Read more

"Death Falls"

Massive amounts of extremely turbulent waters suddenly meet the endless abyss of Dettifoss, with liquid chaos ensuing right after the fall. The Universe seems to have its strange ways of always creating order out of chaos, and witnessing such water apocalypse giving birth to a steady and serene undulating river, makes me wonder if we, as humans, are right now steady streams or rather turbulent waters, headed to somewhere less chaotic.

Even though I constantly look for it, I do not have an answer, but at least this majestic monument of Nature shows me that there can be hope in the end.

Location: Dettifoss, Iceland

Story:

After spending an incredible day at Seyðisfjörður, where we witnessed the best weather ever in Iceland, with the sun shining and 20ºC temperatures, we decided to head to the East side of the famous most powerful waterfall of Iceland (and Europe) - Dettifoss - with brief stops along the way to capture the landscapes. We arrived to the Detifoss parking lot at night, and were greeted by extremely strong winds, that made the simple task of keeping a car door open seem like a gym session. We planned to shoot the Dettifoss west side by sunrise, so we didn't want to be caught unprepared next morning, and did a terrain recognition during the night, to get a feel of how long it would take to arrive to the waterfall. After walking for 15 minutes we finally hear that familiar dense rumble, and there she was, waiting for us the next day. We returned to car and managed to eat some sandwiches and the essential Pringles, and went to "bed". The car was constantly balancing due to the wind, which made sleep not as comforting.

The phone alarm set off at 5h30 am, and then I had to go through the usual ritual of trying to do a caffeine-CPR to my comatose morning body, with massive amounts of awful soluble coffee. We got dressed in a hurry and there we went. Contrary to our predictions, the sun took much longer than expected to rise above the east side, so we had to wait about 1.5 hours under extreme wind and cold, where only the incredible vision of the waterfall would soothe the negative body sensations. Finally the sun showed up, and here is one of images captured in that morning.

Technical details:

Sony a7R + Zeiss 16-35mm f4
Exposure: 1 second for the foreground; 10 seconds for the waterfall and sky
Aperture: f-14
ISO: 100
Formatt Hitech Firecrest 4 stops full ND; Formatt Hitech Prostop IRND 4 stops soft ND Grad
Manfrotto 055XPRO3 tripod
Wireless remote shutter
Terrascape filter bag
Read less