Auroras through the night - volcanoes during the day
At around 9pm this evening, I was beginning to review the photos I'd taken today, when Liza knocked on the door - "we have an Aurora, faint but growing!" But I digress.
Since I arrived in Iceland, we have had days of cloud, snow, rain, sleet, wind and some very brief bursts of sunshine. Driving out of Reykjavik yesterday to the Hekla Volcano region, the fields were covered in snow for kilometer after kilometer - even the trees planted as windbreaks between paddocks were grey. The world was looking very monochromatic.
As we drove towards Selfoss where we stayed for 2 nights, we stopped to photograph various places - a historic church, white with a red roof; an old Viking house, high up on a hill, covered in snow; a small waterfall that had essentially frozen over, and late in the afternoon, another beautiful old church set in a valley near a small forest of birch trees. Getting to this one was quite a challenge on the snowy roads - it feels as if our bus is 4WD, but I doubt this. Peter, our driver, managed to take us places that only a 4WD would normally go!
All today's locations were beautiful, providing photography challenges because of the white snow, white buildings and grey skies. There were lots of ongoing learnings and guidance from Ira Block and Liza Politi, our guides and mentors for the week.
By the time we arrived at the hotel, everyone was ready for a nice meal, hot shower and a good night's sleep. We also needed time to choose our 6 best photos from the last few days for tomorrow morning's class - this is a critique process that helps us learn, primarily from Ira and also from Liza.
As much as we would have welcomed an Aurora, I think we were all grateful for uninterrupted sleep.
This morning's class was our first formal 2 hour session - extremely valuable. We then climbed into the medium sized bus (allows the 14 of us to spread out with all our gear) and drove east to the Seljalandsfoss & Skogafoss waterfalls, as well as the black sand beach nearby.
And the further we drove east, the more the sun began to shine - a very nice change from the last 3 days!
At the waterfalls my challenge was to get that nice "silky water" effect - and I finally achieved it after playing with filters and settings. All good! The Black Sand beach that we visited at Sólheimasandur, was fascinating. A US Navy DC3 was forced to land there in 1973. Everyone survived, and the wreck remains - just lying there on the beach, waves crashing in the background.
As we drove the 1.5 hours back to our hotel, the sky remained clear. Our instructions were to have 5 photos available for our 7am breakfast/class session tomorrow, be packed and ready to leave at the end of the class, and since the sky was clear and stars were visible, to be ready to get outside to see an Aurora should one appear!
So here I am having just come in from outside, where I learned to photograph the Northern Lights. Tonight it was a green wide streak across the sky, building in intensity and then fading a little - then building again.
We watched and photographed for well over an hour, but soon it was time to come in out of the cold, clear night with sparkling stars. Perhaps tomorrow we'll see a more intense and colourful Aurora.
In the meantime, I need to edit my photos and select 5 for tomorrow!
But it's been a night of little sleep & no complaints! Soon after I'd chosen my photos, I turned off my laptop, got ready for bed and thought that maybe, just maybe I'd see a little more aurora from my hotel window. And sure enough, there it was. Still looking green to my eye and visible as a long ribbon across the sky. It faded & then grew in intensity - the width of the ribbon slowly shrinking and widening. Then an area seemed to "break away" and there was a sudden, gentle movement as it appeared to fold back on itself and a part moved higher in the sky.
Of course my camera sensor is much more sensitive to colour than my eyes, particularly at night, and at 1 am & below zero outside, I really didn't want to put on all my gear again. So I took a short-cut and shot a few handheld photos through the window. The best ones were not particularly good, with blurred street lights & stars, but it was so spectacular that I really had to take them.
Photos on my website are now all "post-processed" versions. I note this because as part of this course we are treated somewhat "National Geographic-like". This means that all photos put forward for critique are viewed as they are seen straight out of the camera - no cropping, no tweaking of any kind. The photos on my website have been cropped where necessary and have had small changes in exposure and some sharpening - no Photoshopping (nothing added or removed other than cropping). www.elanezphotography.com/Places-Europe-Iceland/Aurora-Borealis-Northern-Light/
For info, some have asked if they can reply to the email alerting you to a new post. Yes indeed - it's always great to hear from you, but please don't feel any obligation to do this.
More to come over the next few days - and please remind me to tell you about the Icelandic horses that we met on Monday. Gorgeous cuddly, friendly & very photogenic animals!