“You’re a nightmare. Am I going to have to get my camera out of the bag again?” Evidently, Lee was happy enough with the shots he’d taken over the last hour and a half and wasn’t too bothered about the prospect of any late entrants to his own personal pic of the day contest. In truth, he’d already done well – perhaps you saw his picture of Kirkjufell in the pink hour. Still, in the rapidly descending darkness I suspected the complaint carried a certain amount of amused irony as I head the tell tale sound of a bag being unzipped and a tripod being reassembled.
It was the end of a very challenging first full day of shooting at Base Camp one on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula. Under an endless grey canopy we’d gradually made our way around a clockwise course, stopping at a series of locations, at some of which we wandered around aimlessly, trying to work out where a shot might deliver, whilst carelessly ruling out other spots that very probably didn’t deserve to be ignored. By 4pm we’d walked a stony trail across the clifftop between Dupalonssandur and Dritvik Beach before returning to the former under a steady drizzle that reminded us of our home in Cornwall. With wellies and fully attired in waterproofs we’d trained our cameras over the stony beaches, trying to keep the rain from our lenses and doing our best to keep our spirits high. But there was no denying it – conditions were only a step away from downright awful. Just like our previous visit to the area three years earlier, the mountains had been barely visible and the light had been as flat as a pancake lens. We reminded ourselves that this is Iceland, and if we’d wanted guaranteed weather conditions then we were about two thousand miles north of where we needed to be.
I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but later it seemed that somewhere along the road from that wet grey beach we’d entered a dream world where the rain had stopped as we drove along an almost completely traffic free road for miles and miles, through lava fields dotted with patches of boggy marshland and the odd volcanic bowl. It’s truly extraordinary to travel through a place like this when you live in such a heavily populated country – so wild, remote and empty. For long straight stretches of road we’d be the only car, slowly making our way back towards our base at Grundarfjordur and a sunset appointment with Kirkjufell, the mountain of a million pictures. Rarely if ever have I enjoyed a drive as much as I did those quiet miles on the asphalt ribbon through the rock strewn terrain laid down by Snaefellsjokull, as gradually the sky began to warm and bring us promise of rewards for enduring the rains that had filled the hours beforehand. I think that when the memories start to dim and only leave the highlights behind, that joyful hour of discovery behind the wheel will remain with me as we charted new territory, eventually arriving at Hellissandur on the northwest tip of the peninsula and then on to Olafsvik. I’ve always been drawn by the edge of the world feeling that places like these bring. When you’re in a place like this, you really feel that beyond them the sea stretches away to eternity. As we continued the last miles of that happy drive, the sunlight appeared in shafts to ignite the mountains of the Westfjords across the water to the north of us.
And now we were back at Kirkjufell, the rains having departed and been replaced by a soft sunset glow. We’d spent an hour at the lake, watching the light change as we took picture after picture, before beginning the walk back towards the layby near Grundarfjordur where we’d parked the car. And it was then that I noticed how bright the water in the second, smaller lake looked against the darkening sky and the silhouette of the famous brooding mountain. A few cars passed, trying to tempt us into traffic trails, but I was after only the slightest hint of movement, ramping the ISO and opening the aperture as wide as I dared to try and capture a modest blur. When the lorry entered the scene, I took the first shot too early and the second one a little too late. I’d have like to have captured it just a second or two earlier in truth, to have it travelling into the frame, but a bit of cropping at least put it centre stage rather than driving right out of the picture. It was still a shot, and more importantly a moment I liked, with that patch of still bright light illuminating the middle of the image and reflecting across the still water in front of me. Lee was chattering away contentedly to himself - obviously he was happy that he'd chosen to delve into his bag again. Little did he know that there was still one more impromptu clacking session to come before the cameras really went to bed for the night. While the weather had done its best to ruin much of the first full day in Iceland, the last couple of hours had brought moments of sheer contentment and satisfied grins from behind the viewfinders.
Just like at home, big trucks so often seem to travel through the night here, plotting lonely courses across the empty landscape. For a while I wondered where this one was going to. Reykjavik I suppose. Where from seems an easier question to answer with only two very small towns lying in the direction it had come from. So it seems our driver's journey had just begun, while for today at least, ours was completed with a sense that in the face of the elements, we'd made the most of things on the first day of the adventure.
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