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A New Wilderness



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A snapshot in time of the new land created by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

A snapshot in time of the new land created by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge
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cameraCanon EOS 400D DIGITAL

settings Aperture f/13 ISO 400 Shutter 1/640 Focal Length 55/1 

upload_dateJun, 2015

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken in Iceland in Thingvellir National Park, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates meet. I was standing on the newly formed land that has appeared over the last thousand years or so where the plates have moved apart. I was there on an A Level field trip with my school studying geography, and decided to take my camera with me.

Time

This photo was taken late afternoon, having spent the morning looking in a hydroelectric dam, we had taken the coach to Thingvellir National Park to study the formation of the new land. I took this photo as we were leaving, having walked to the top of the cliff you can see running across the photo.

Lighting

I didn't really think much of the lighting at the time, as I was essentially taking holiday snaps, and wanted to capture the scenery rather than a carefully set up landscape. As this was taken in Iceland, mid autumn, the sun never reaches more that a third of the way up the sky, and by this time I had the sun behind be as it was setting. So I essentially had a massive on-camera light to take the photo, if I can get away with calling the sun that!

Equipment

This was taken on a Canon 400D, with a 18-55mm kit lens. This was my first DLSR and was all second hand, having convinced my parents to let me buy one WITH MY OWN MONEY!

Inspiration

The main inspiration for taking this photo was to accurately capture Iceland for the beauty it had, as I knew that I may never get the chance to visit again as it was a one off visit on a geography trip. Throughout the trip I had been taking a number of photos, trying to capture the trip. This one was sheer chance that it came out like this, making me love it all the more.

Editing

There was some post-processing in terms of removing a few vehicles and people that spoilt the image, but as far as colour correction and normal changes to exposure and contrast, there wasn't much at all. I managed to get really lucky with the correct camera setting fist time. I'm pretty sure I haven't been that lucky since/

In my camera bag

At the time, I was travelling light, as a camera was a secondary thought. So I was only carrying the 400D, 18-55mm and 55-250mm, as a bare essentials kit. But now I have upgraded to a Canon 60D, a Sigma 15-30mm f3.5-4.5 and a Tamron 70-200mm f2.8, as well as the 400D and the kit lenses. I do often carry a cheap but good Neewer TTL speedlite, and some cheap plastic filters. Not forgetting the usual assortment of memory cards and readers.

Feedback

The best advice I can give for capturing something similar is to think "will I ever see this place again?" and then focus on making the image as close to what you see as possible. Yes if someone was deliberately trying to capture a similar image, you would put much more thought into it. But if you had 5 mins to take a photo before getting back on a bus away from the location, what result would you get. I can't deny that I was unbelievably lucky with this photo, making it hard to give specific advice, but we all have those moments and we all get that one photo that just works. For me, this was that photo.

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