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The Land of Ice and Fire

by Paul Gallagher

LI have had intentions of visiting Iceland for many years and recently the island has featured in the articles of many photography magazines billed as the place to be if you are a landscape photographer. One of the reasons Iceland has appealed to me is that many images of the place 'look' monochrome and having had a long career working in monochrome it seemed a natural place to be. After some time deliberating I had my flights booked and I was off, with kit packed and looking forward to see what I could make of it. One of the problems with visiting a popular location that has been photographed extensively is that you often wonder if you can do the place justice or will you simply produce a body of work that is not as good as that previously produced.

I travelled to Iceland with my friend and business partner Michael Pilkington, with the intention of visiting enough locations and hotels to run a landscape photography workshop there next year for my company, Aspect2i. For this reason alone we had to plan the trip carefully and make each day count during our seven days. During the planning stage I soon realised how big the island actually is* and the decision was made to concentrate purely on the southern part. An attempt to combine the northern part of the island in addition would be too stressful for me due to the amount of time spent driving past beautiful sights without being able to stop!

*Iceland is the fourth largest island in Europe, with an area a little under one half of that of the British Isles, but with a population of just 94,000 it is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. It has no railway lines and is about 500km from side to side.

Our journey would lead us from west to east with a final push back toward Reykjavic and the flight home. We planned to begin at the wonderful Gullfoss with its giant waterfalls and geysers; then head east and stay in the town of Vik for two nights followed by Jokusarlon where the glaciers meet the coastline and icebergs float out into the Atlantic.

So you may be asking what I thought of the place and was it all it was made up to be? I have travelled with my camera to many regions and been impressed with the landscape and felt the need to reach for my camera around every corner. I have also been to places that were well publicised such as Iceland and had not been as impressed as I thought I would be.

Iceland, however, was a place that staggered me during each day I was there. On the first night we arrived and stopped on a gravel track as Michael said that he had seen something in the sky. It was the end of the day and the sun had not yet set. We got out of the car and concluded that what we saw in the sky was probably a strange shaped cloud. Later that evening after we checked into our hotel and explained this to our hotelier he then checked his computer and said that the Northern Lights forecast for that night was very strong. The moments following this will stay with me until the day I die as one of the most awe-inspiring displays of nature I have ever seen. The lights danced and glided across the sky until the small hours and I went to bed exhausted and cold to the bones having spent hours photographing them just outside the hotel door.

This was only the beginning. The days that followed were filled with similar moments standing beneath roaring waterfalls where the human figures appeared tiny as they gazed upwards at the cascades falling from the cliffs. There were also the black beaches with blocks of ice that looked like jewels washed up from the sea. I will never forget the glaciers and iceberg lagoons and standing there with my camera, trying to make sense of it all and at the same time hearing the ice cracking and falling into the lagoon as the sun rose and warmed the air. I recall the vast basalt columns rising out of the black sand of Vik beach and the huge waves from the Atlantic crashing at their feet. The flat-lands that separate the coastal and mountain areas are often overlooked, but with perfectly straight roads, old abandoned farms and machinery in what seems like the middle of nowhere, they present endless opportunities.

In short, the place mesmerised me and I was almost overwhelmed by its beauty and the amount of photographic opportunities it offered. Many locations give you good days and when you return to your hotel you feel it all came together.

Iceland was in a league of its own and will be a place I will return to year after year.

In fact I have already scheduled my return visits for April and September next year, leading courses for Aspect2i!



Updated 27/04/2026 16:44:22 Last Modified: Monday, 27 April 2026