By this time, only Lee and I were still here, in the company of our new friend Brian, who for avoidance of doubt among regular readers was not the same Brian who accompanied us on our previous visit to Iceland. This Brian was a human being rather than a yellow VW campervan, touring the area on a five night visit from Chicago. Somehow, and despite having a young family at home, he’d been given clearance by mission control to fly to Iceland and spend a few days alone taking photographs. When my children were the same age as his were now, I could barely make it down to the shop at the end of the road to pick up a pint of milk without company, never mind climb aboard a plane bound for somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean. And here he was, sitting alongside us on this far flung Icelandic beach. The crowds had long since departed - not that you really get crowds at Hvalnes, hidden away from the madding hordes as it is. Last time we’d been here, three years earlier on that gloomy grey morning, we hadn’t seen a single soul as the rain endlessly coated our cameras and foiled our intentions, whilst hiding the landscape in featureless clouds.
Now as autumn kicked in, things were rather different. We’d been here since the middle of the afternoon, absorbing the views, wandering over the beach and the headland by the squat, square orange lighthouse, planning compositions. The shot I’d come for three summers earlier was hopefully somewhere on the SD card, and there was a general feeling of contentment. Despite the increased number of visitors in comparison to last time, it was still very peaceful here. Eystrahorn had put right the wrongs of 2019 when moodily I’d perched on the slippery rocks, barely removing the protective plastic sandwich bag from the camera as it sat unused on the tripod. Everything was visible, from the emphatic bulk of Eystrahorn rising at our side, a symphony of bumps, crags and ridges adorned with heavy skirts of scree, to the distant Brunnhorn that sits back to back against its neighbour Vestrahorn. In between lay a hinterland of forbidding mountains that cloaked the monstrous Vatnajokull glacier, and before them, volleys of white surf danced across a narrow spit of black sand that stretched away beside the huge tidal lagoon into the distance and out of sight. Elemental joy, in whichever direction you chose to look.
There are no cities, towns, nor even villages here - you’d need to drive more than thirty miles in one direction before finding yourself at Djúpivogur, nestling among the south eastern fjords, home to five hundred hardy Icelanders. If instead you decide to head west, you’d travel pretty much the same distance to arrive at Höfn, a veritable metropolis in these parts with almost two and a half thousand inhabitants. Apart from that, there are farms, the odd shepherd’s hut, and an ever increasing number of cabins and bunkhouses to accommodate us tourists. All other compass points lead into the vast ocean or the mostly impenetrable mountains at the edge of the largest glacier in Europe. It’s a long way to go if you forgot to pick up that pint of milk, that’s for sure. You’d have to go and knock on a farmhouse door carrying an empty jug, unless you like your coffee black.
With all of that grand vista spreading away in front of us, the long lens offered possibilities beyond the capabilities of its companions in the bag, and in the golden hour it came into its own, especially in these unforgettable minutes when the pinks began to fill the sky, while the golds continued to linger. On the darkening sand, maybe half a mile away, a small group of visitors roamed the shore, taking selfies, playing beach games, gazing out towards the sea, totally oblivious to the three photographers lurking on those distant rocks. A rare moment when the colours of the golden and blue hours seemed to overlap one another and produce a sky that glowed with heavenly fire, drawing a frenzy of shutters rapidly opening and closing. These are the moments that stay with you, a timeless reminder of why you fell in love with landscape photography. A reminder of why a place like this gets inside of your senses and never leaves.
Our first full day in the southeastern corner had been a good one. We said farewell as Brian headed east to Djúpivogur, while we went the opposite way towards our rented chalet at Stafafell. And little did we know that just a few hours later we’d be out of bed, taking photographs of the Northern Lights. But that’s another story. And another unforgettable one at that too. Iceland keeps on making the stories write themselves.
