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B+WGRUNDAFJORDUR, SNAEFELLSNES PENINSULA, ICELAND
Kirkjufell (Church Mountain) is the most popular subject on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula.
I loved the way this block of frozen lake ice echoed its distinctive triangular shape.
Canon EOS 5D MKIII with 17-40mm zoom, 1/8sec at f/11, ISO 400T
hat’s great. Can you bring me
back a King Prawn Ring and some
Sticky Chicken Skewers?’ Not
really the response I was soliciting
when I mentioned to a neighbour that I
was going to Iceland, but even when I’d
cleared up the confusion and explained
that I was referring to the country, not the
supermarket chain, his reaction was still
unremarkable to say the least. ‘Why the
hell do you want to go there?’
Iceland’s one of those countries that
everyone’s vaguely heard of, but fewknow much about. It’s up in the Arctic
somewhere, freezing cold, light all summer,
dark all winter and inhabited by people who
wear woolly jumpers, eat pickled shark and
believe in trolls. Only some of that is untrue.
It also gets a pretty bad press. In the
70s we had the Cod Wars, during which
Icelandic fishermen were cutting the nets
of British trawlers that illegally entered
‘their’ fishing grounds. Then Björk hit the
charts and scared us half to death with
her weird voice and even weirder fashion
sense. In 2008 the country went bankruptafter its three main commercial banks
collapsed, leaving 100 UK local authorities
£840 million down and giving rise to jokes
such as: What’s the capital of Iceland?
Answer: About £3.50.
But what really put Iceland on the map
in recent years occurred in April 2010,
when a violent volcanic eruption blasted
through the Eyjafjallajökull glacier, kicking
up an ash cloud 9km high that caused
chaos throughout European airspace
and created great mirth as we listened to
newsreaders around the world trying to
pronounce the damned name. There are
YouTube videos to prove it.
‘You wanted cash, we gave you ash’
read the headlines! Oh, how we laughed.
Where did yours truly happen to be?
Iceland of course! Call it fate or bad
planning, but when I booked the flight
months earlier for my first trip to the Land
of Fire and Ice, I had no idea what was
on the horizon.
As it happened, the eruption was a bonus,
providing amazing photo opportunities and
an unforgettable experience. But one thing
became evident during that first trip – you
can’t ‘do’ Iceland in a single visit; there’s
simply too much to take in. So I went back.
Not once, but 10 times, with three more
planned for 2016. Iceland does that to you. It
gets under your skin. The landscape is epic
and stunningly beautiful – think Scotland
on steroids. The population is small and the
empty spaces big. Every time you return
from one trip, you’re itching to go back again
to take shots that eluded you on that one.T
here are benefits to visiting Iceland
at any time of year. During the
summer the country enjoys 24-hour
daylight while in autumn the colours
are beautiful. However, in recent years,
winter has become my favourite time to
visit. January and February are the months
I generally choose, but November to March
is the winter season. Not only are there far
fewer tourists to get in the way (which is a
bonus now the numbers flocking to Iceland
each year has topped two million), but the
weather isn’t nearly as bad as you might
expect, the light can be sublimely beautiful
and there’s the added bonus of being able
to shoot inside ice caves (which are only
safe to access from October to March).
Yes, it’s cold, but no colder than a clear
winter’s day in the Scottish Highlands and
not as cold as New York City in winter. The
lowest I’ve seen the mercury drop to in
January in Iceland is -12°C. On a still day that‘Th e landscape is epic and
stunningly beautiful – think
Scotland on steroids.’
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