Insane. Iceland. | 💥 | "Concluding my series about the mysterious country" | 33 photo's |

in #travel7 years ago (edited)

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Since being a medical student entails having a 60h work week without a salary, the university does compensate us with some quite lengthy breaks.
During the first week of my 4-week Holliday, I visited a country I was most hyped about visiting for so long.

Being a photographer for 4 years who traveled with 9 lenses
"Iceland did not let me down." 😊

Iceland is the third most windy country in the world. There is insane vulcanic activity (remember the europe flight traffic some years ago?) I am sure what mother nature must have thought while creating it: "well, let's see what humanity would do with a volcanic place, stripped from all possible control they love so much having"

Since I want to show you way too many pictures (33) I keep the writing to a minimum. Now sit back and scroll away, I invite you to click on the photos for a full resolution render

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This spike-tired bus was our mothership during our stay. 🚍


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The colours, as well as the cleanest sky and most delicious water, are something you have not ever encountered before. It seemed Iceland only knows two colour states during the winter: Pastel coloring and Black and white. First of are the colored shots.

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Maybe there are too many pastel sunsets shown here, but whenever a landscape scenario does almost bring me to tears I just have to include them... 🗻♥


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The mothership did get stuck for over 3 hours. Mother nature is relentless, even bus drivers with over 40 years of experience are not properly armed against it it seems. 🚍🌨


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Talking about the problematic elements:
During the last day, a heavy storm was heading over Iceland's capital, turning a nice walk into a tremendously scary endeavor which ended in a taxi ride home. 🚖 What's more, we had not even one uncloudy night, so no stars nor northern lights for us sadly 😔


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I can't help myself but shoot some abstract work alongside my normally more realistic photos. Above you see a long exposure from the buss and some water at the Reykjavik harbor. See the Desaturated section below for abstracts


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This second chapter will mainly show you the great contrasts between blacks and whites seen in Iceland. Starting off with this bird, that was just minding its own business (being food) while I was so rude to interrupt with my camera.

Don't ever use your flash while capturing animals, lets be nice to our fellow species.

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Those monochrome shots make me really want to visit Iceland during the summer. I am just so curious what tints I would be able to capture while photosynthesis is doing its thing.


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And then that moment came... Having to head home again.😕
Just five days in Iceland feel like a month. The lack of control of what and where you can go yields lots of tiny moments of stress. This surrender to the elements is something we are not used to in The Netherlands. We just built big and great walls against the rising waters. Here just planning one day ahead was too much to ask. It was both the most weirdest and inspiring truth 🌬✨

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As seen above, traveling to the airport to head home again was complicated by the heaviest storm Reykjavik had seen in a year. Yep the same one we experienced the night before . (source: the bus driver )
On the left, you can see the engine of the plane while standing still, accelerating and flying.

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Iceland is 3 times the size of the Netherlands with just 330k inhabitants it has less than 2% of the Dutch population. I came here in order to capture it's wild nature and hoped to get a sight of the northern lights. I was successful of the first thing. the latter, not so much.



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On the right you see some of my
previous photos from Iceland.

Check them out here:
>Episode 1< and here: >Episode 2<
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Damn Iceland, you are beautiful. See you again soon.

The above pictures are shot by me, with a lot of different manual focus vintage lenses (varying from 24 to 300mm) on my Sony A7II

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Thanks for your time, Feedback is always appreciated!

"Emotions are there to be expressed, not to be suppressed and bottled up. I do photography in order to take my mind away from the dilemma's I encounter during my medical internships."

💞🎥💞

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thi-js. Out.

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Wow…Amazing photography. I have rarely seen such a beautiful photography. Landscapes are mind blowing! I plan to visit Iceland too. Have you been to the Netherlands? It’s also one of a great tourist attractions

Thijs is a Dutch name =D I live in Amsterdam.

thanks for the compliment


t.

Hahahha......sorry!
Because of the dash (-) I couldn't perceive it, lol
Nice to meet you @thi-js :)
I live in Leiden.

Haha ow hello! Love the botanical gardens in Leiden a ton!

I live at walking distance from the botanical garden. Are you talking about the one in Rapenburg? How do you know about it?

I figured! It looks Dutch--

I agree

Man, why are you on Steemit? You should be working for National Geographic Traveler or something.

You've got some amazing photos there.

Wow that is about the most great compliment someone ever gave me about my photography.

I have though about dropping medicine and aspiring a more serious photography career but didint dare to. Now it's just a quite cristalized hobby.


t.

Keep going with photography. Make it happen. 'Who dares wins', or so they say. ;)

It's true, getting out of your comfort zone works quite well for getting great opertunities


t.

Amazing!!! I am going there next summer... can't wait to take the drone out for a fly in those black sand beaches and glaciars

Those drone shots are superb! So manny amazing figures where painted by the volcanic activity.


t.

You took those pictures very well. They are beautiful. I want to visit so muuuuch.!

And you should. It's my nr 1 tip


t.

Awesome photos! Congrats 😉

You have been so kind to me! Tnx


t.

This blog has a value. Great post! We enjoyed reading!

Oew! Who is we?

Did I provide you with dating material? ^^


t.

In one word: amazing! Wow, I love this post.. I can imagine that you get close to tears in the eyes when seeing this kind of landscapes.. Too bad you did not get to see the nothern light, that's one on my bucketlist too. I think that must be one of the worlds most mindblowing things of nature..

Agreed!

Well spoiler alert:

I did see it from my flight back from San Francisco last week 😊
Thanks for the kind words, hope tou would soon see it too


t.

That was an extra treat to finish your trip! Was it as mindblowing as it always seems to be. I think it must look magical..

Well tbh, it was a white blur

nothing to special to see with the naked eye, but my camera did catch so much more.

Be on the lookout for my post later this week I would say xx


t.

oh wow this looks beautiful ! I am saving for trip to iceland aswell :) can't wait to visit it !

And you should not either!

or wait another year in order to be there during the northern lights season.
What would you be looking out for most?


t.

Amazing set of shots! Magical place, I hope I will manage to visit Iceland this year - my dream to go there and psend few days just me and nature around... Similar here in Norway, but Iceland is much more extreme in every aspect.

I have been told that Norway also is a great place to visit. I do have a weird question for you.:

what would one pay for a bottle of water down there? Iceland was super expensive in almost every aspect haha.

Norway is on my list in order to see some proper northern lights someday!


t.

True, for a bottle 0.5l of mineral water in shop You have to pay around 3 USD. There is olso cheapest 1,5 liter bottle in price of around 2$ but it is maybe for washing hands, because nit for drinking ( really bad taste of plastic) . But this is not a problem. Here You just drink the water straight from sink - it is pure, tasty and safe. It is normal.
I checked prices one day on the internet and I can say Iceland is little cheaper if we talk about food stuff... Every time somebody from Poland visit me, got really shocked because of the prices, they are approx 5× higher than in Poland.

Haha I could not have gotten a better responds! Thanks this is handy for future endeavors!


t.

Waoooo Beautiful Pictures...!

Don't you think I am showing to many pictures?

Thanks for your message!


t.

No, it's perfect like this.

Nice nice 😊


t.

I do, I think you could easily have split this into 2 or 3 posts and still producing amazing and worthy content :)

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