The Pastel of Nature @ Landmannalaugar, Iceland

Canon R5
Canon RF 70-200mm - 2.8L IS
PolarPro Circular Polarizer

Hello everyone, how are you all doing. I was absent from Flicker for some time now. Because I was in one of my dream road trip to Iceland. This was my third visit to "The Land of Ice & Fire" and it really felt like the first one. In fact it made it better because I could already visualize what to expect and that made me more excited than the first one back in 2018.

Things did change in Iceland. Crowd increased, roads became better. More fencings came in place to keep the tourist away from destroying the delicate landscape. Which at the end made the locations and bit less epic. Even though the rawness of the wild landscape reduced around the ring road, the interior or rather the so called highland still remained as adventurous as before. And that way the main hotspot of my this trip.

Now let's talk about this image. There are always some interesting stories behind my favorite images and this one is surely one of them. Sure that composition is pretty common. But my experience on how I achieved it may not be that common.

Weather in Iceland is unpredictable. So I always followed the forecast of next 24 hours and moved around along with that and that something means driving 500 KMs to get to a place were I can expect proper light and no rain and wind.

Even after that, this was my 2nd attempt to get to Landmannalaugar. In the first attempt I reached there too late after a super adventure of crossing the F210 and crossing countless rivers. The next day even after an early 4AM start for the hike the weather cloned up after few minutes of reaching the top. I did manage to take some videos, but not enough time for photography.

So in the 2nd attempt. That was the day when I drove from the North of Iceland for almost 6.5 hours to get to Landmannalaugar. My wife and son were pretty tired, so do I; but I had to go. This image is difficult to make alone. So I convinced my 12 years old to come up and help me. But again, we were too late and this composition was already backlit. However, we did have excellent light on the other direction, but still not my dream image. We came down around 23:00.

So the next day I had to go up there again very early in the morning. But this time, I didn't dare to ask my little boy to go up with me. After a full day in the car and return from the hike at 23:00; another start at 4AM is too much for a 12 year old. So I had to go alone.

I reached the top. As usual with no one around at a place that is rather popular and does get crowded in Icelandic standard. But how do I have an object at that road. No one is coming in next few hours here. On top the road other side had been destroyed by landslide. So not many people are taking that road anyway. So what to do? Well, I am the only subject. But that place is like 500 meters away from the camera and to get there I need to go down like 100 meters. So how do I click the shutter?

But I have to do it. So I did something that is probably not what the equipment was meant for. I took out the cable release. Yes, yes, even with a modern R5 where bulb timer and timelapse features are build into the camera, I still carry that cable release. I am still old fashion you know. :)

So I set the timer to take the first image after 10 minutes as I thought that is how long it will take me to get there. Synced the stop watch of my watch with that. Set the camera in timelapse mode to take one image every 5 seconds and take 50 images like that and I started walking at the location with no preview of what it will capture and where I will be.

My bet was that I will start at the pole and keep walking slowing. The camera will take 50 images every 5 seconds and hopefully one will come good and I also played that the light doesn't change in between due to the sun going behind the cloud. Due to all those reflective surfaces the camera was not metering properly in the Aperture Priority. So I set it to manual. On top with shadow coming in and reflections going off; things will get more random for the camera to meter.

So I reached there in around 8 minutes. Set myself up for the time the watch tell me to start. Then at the time started slowly walking up. The steep last part of the hike back was the anxious moment. Did I have a shot? Or do I have to do this again. I was already pretty tired with all what I did the day before. Finally I reviewed the images and yes, some of them came pretty well. I literally shouted there "YESSSS"; for a moment I was a bit lost. Then suddenly looked around just make sure that there is no one else wondering why this mad guy is. But well, too early. Not a sole around.

In fact, I did capture another where I went even further and by now I have mastered the technique. So the 2nd one was easier. I will share that sometime later.

Ok, a very long story, but was an eventful morning for me and was specially interesting when it came after a long wait of 5 years.

Have a nice weekend.

Hope you will enjoy the picture.

Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.
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