Out There
When rain is good
The trip to Iceland was dotted with many pleasant surprises it has to be said. You form certain ideas and have preconceived expectations regards what you are going to see and be able to do. I devour guide books and trawl the internet hoping to search out some precious little nuggets, unvisited by the hoards, forever looking for where we need to go to have ‘the place to ourselves’. An elusive luxury, it is all dependant on how hard you want to work, and how far you want to trek to get off the beaten track. But the landscapes and the horizons were far more expansive than I had imagined and the challenge was going to know when to stop shooting and panning!
The land is laced with a web of ‘F-roads’, gravel tracks and rough tracks. This lends the place to exploration by car or truck. I did have my ‘green credentials’ tested by this concept but the accessibility this afforded me to the highlands was unsurpassable and it certainly fulfilled the number one criteria of having the place to ourselves.
The weather was perfect, in that it wasn’t so to speak. Showers and curtains of rain, not to mention the odd snow flurry were the order of the day. And the sunny skies when they came were plump with cumulus or sketched with intricate cirrus patterns. Two weeks previously Iceland had swealtered under 'record' temperatures, the giddy heights of 27c had been reached. Our nights however, were cold and blankets were employed in the cab. I am though genuinely glad that I missed the 'heatwave', the rain suited me just fine thank you!
Iceland is in essence a landscape and nature photographers dream. The old Scottish adage applies, “if you don’t like the weather here, wait five minutes and it will change”. The advantage that driving through the highlands afforded me was the ability to pull over, brew a coffee and wait for the weather to do what it invariably would get round to doing to fulfil my ‘requirements’. A lazy luxury, it was bliss.