Sometimes decay can be beautiful. I walked the garden one day looking for dried and cracked textures, for discarded parts, for nature in a state of decomposition. For something different than I usually look for. There is so much to see when when you look beyond the fresh bloom at the beginning of life. This was a a wonderful reminder to observe more than the obvious: flowers and butterflies are beautiful in all their colorful glory, and so are brown branches and brittle dry flower petals.
Remains of cut flowers in the compost pileHydrangea in the compostA rose bloom in its death throesHydrangea in the leaf litter
Of course, all of these dead and dying things are fodder for other life: ants, fruit flies, centipedes, and worms all feed on them. Rain and wind, friction and feet, biting mouths and digestive tracts break them down until they are dirt again.
And sometimes, before that happens, a creature will gather these shed strands, forgotten fragments, and castoff clumps into soft shelters for new life to be born.
A recent work trip to France and then a family trip to Iceland have rekindled my interest in photography. I had gotten bored photographing our garden over and over again — same flowers, same mulch, same butterflies and caterpillars — and I’d gotten in a rut. When we were in Iceland, everything was new (and gorgeous), and I took my camera with me everywhere while we we there.
Since we returned, I want to keep going. Photography helps me see the world with fresh eyes. It helps me find interest in the mundane, in the stuff that’s so much a part of life that I don’t see it as potential for art. This is a theme I’ve found in writing, too. We rarely stop to acknowledge the beauty in the routine things we take for granted, or we minimize their curiosity because they’re so normal and everyday to us.
Mrs. Tubbles, for photo class exposure assignment
To help me notice the world around me, and to help me improve my photography, I wanted guidance. I wanted assignments. I wanted direction from someone who is not me. I found an online course that seems to go on sale pretty much every day — Photography Masterclass: A Complete Guide to Photography — and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it.
Garden flowers, for contrast challenge from course instructors’ Photography and Friends website
Each day, I discover new settings on my camera, like the bracketing and exposure compensation features, or different film simulations, including black and white. And each day I play more in my editing software (darktable) to see if I can tweak this lighting or that contrast or deepen that color.
Daisies and fence; just playing around in editing software to convert to black and white
I’ve started carrying my camera with me more frequently on outings, and I’m learning a ton about my camera and about photo editing.
I’ve got a long way to go.
There are a few things that no amount of editing can fix, and the biggest ones I’ve found so far are exposure and focus. I take photos now at lots of different settings for exposure, but I still have a lot to learn about light to get it right. Also, my eyes aren’t great, and it’s hard for me to see whether an image is actually in focus until I get it on my computer; I’m often disappointed that what looks great on my camera’s tiny display screen actually isn’t that great on a screen where I can actually see it. Most of that comes down to trying to shoot in low light without a tripod though, meaning I end up with super shallow depth of field, like in the first guitar image below where the grain of the guitar body and part of the bridge are in focus, but the bridge pins and the strings — only about 1cm closer to the camera — are not. These discrepancies are teaching me what I need to improve in order to capture what I’d hoped to capture, though. I’ll keep practicing. I should have a few years left in me to keep learning.
Composition assignment: negative spaceI just like the shiny metalI love all the beautiful woods of acoustic guitarsComposition assignment: rule of thirdsComposition assignment: symmetryI occupied myself at the guitar store by working on a composition assignment
We split our Iceland visit so that we spent a few days in the city and a few more in the wide open spaces of the southern region of the country. For the second half of our trip, we rented an Airbnb 15 minutes outside the small town of Hvolsvöllur, about an hour east of Reykjavík. The house was at the top of a steep gravel climb, with unobstructed views of the nearby Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
Our AirbnbView from our bedroom windowEyjafjallajökull volcano from deck
In the distance on a clear day, we could see the tiny white vertical line of Seljalandsfoss waterfall dropping off the mountainside and the jagged rocks of Vestmannaeyjar — the Westman Islands — jutting out of the ocean.
10pm 11pm3:30amSunset and sunrise light on Eyjafjallajökull
One day while everyone else was still sleeping I walked around the area near our Airbnb. Our host told us we could walk to the top of the hill behind the house for some great views, so I walked up the gravel road where I found a small set of three steps over the sheep fence. Once over the fence, I looked out onto a vast expanse of hills with nothing on them: no structures, no roads, no foot paths, no trees, no animals. Just moss and lichen and hills and valleys as far as the eye can see. It felt strange to go up there — did anyone own this land? Was I trespassing? Would a large animal come barreling out of nowhere? But we checked with the host and she said it’s fine, trespassing is not really a thing around there, and that we were free to enjoy and explore. So we did. Mostly I just photographed little flowers.
From the hillside near our Airbnb
We attempted a hike one day that wasn’t too far a drive from the house. Where the gravel road intersected with one of the F-roads (roads that require 4WD), there was immediately an unbridged river to cross, along with two signs with big red Xs that said “Impassable.” We did not try to cross the river in our rental Suburu. We backed up and took our original gravel road back around to where we think the parking area was.
When we arrived where we thought the trail would be, there was a ripping stream to cross before we could even get to the trail. On the other side, we could not see the trail, despite an open view of where the trail should be. There were no other cars or people for miles, and we couldn’t find a crossing that we felt good about, especially not to get ourselves or our gear soaking wet before we even began the hike. So we just walked along the rushing water for a bit, our son crossed for fun to see if he could do it, and we enjoyed the wandering sheep.
All aloneWe followed a sheep path along the stream for a bitSheep along the roadsideLook at all those little waterfalls on the hillsideCrossing the stream for funWe didn’t find our hiking trail but the scenery wasn’t bad
It turns out that the F-roads hadn’t opened yet; we were still early enough in the season that they were too treacherous to attempt. On another day, we had wanted to try another hike, to a mountain colored by minerals that would have required travel on F-roads to get to it. After our first encounter with an impassable F-road, we learned more about the route and saw that even if the roads were open, we would have had to cross about 20 unbridged rivers and streams to get to our hike. So we went back to watch puffins again instead, and took a little side trip to a glacier.
Puffins!Love these little birdsEdge of a glacierChunk of glacier in the meltpoolGlacierOur final day of exploring in Iceland
We had an amazing trip, and I’d love to go back and spend more time. We squeezed a lot into our few days there, and if we were to go again, I’d want to take things slower and savor each place more. Maybe go a little later in the season as well, like July or August. I have a sabbatical coming up in a couple of years, maybe that will be a good time…
We tried several excursions in Iceland that didn’t quite work out: a hike we couldn’t get across a river for, puffin watching that was obscured by fog, wind, and rain, another hike that was only accessible by a road that turned from paved, to gravel, to rutted gravel, to grass, to grass and mud, to rutted grass and mud on a steep grade in the middle of nowhere. We decided to back out of before we got stuck on a mountainside in Iceland with nobody around for miles.
After that last attempt, the one where we almost got our rental Suburu stuck in mud high up on a mountainside, we decided to take a safe, well-travelled, known hiking trail at Skógafoss, one of the nearby waterfalls we hadn’t been to yet.
Skógafoss going over the dropSkógafossSkógafoss spray from upper viewing platform
The hike starts with a tremendous staircase next to the first fall of the trail, Skógafoss. The metal stairway climbs a vertical height of about 200 feet in a little more than 500 steps. At the top is a grated platform with nothing but air beneath your feet and a view of the fall from above. I battled vertigo to take a look and watch birds fly below us.
Most visitors climb to the top to see Skógafoss from above, then turn around and go back down, but there’s also a trail – Skógá trail or Waterfall Way — that follows the river for 15 miles, between volcanos, to the river’s glacial origin. Along the trail are so many waterfalls I lost count. We saw six or seven dramatic ones, plus some smaller ones, and we only hiked two miles of the trail. I’ve seen estimates that there are more than 20 falls along the entire path.
We had a cloudy day after a rain, so the grasses and mosses were bright green, almost neon at times, especially against the grey sky.
Fall 2 (after Skógafoss): HestavaðsfossFall 3Fall 3Fall 4: SteinbogafossThe third and fourth waterfalls we saw on the Skóga trailI love all the mosses and little pink flowersMore pink flowersFall 5Mosses, flowers, waterfallsOh yeah, in addition to the waterfalls, this hike is full of mountains, rock falls, and rock formationsMy son and I liked the tiny waterfall on the left; I guess these are falls 6 and 7Moss campion, my favorite little flowerWaterfall #8 in fewer than two milesAnd back down at #7 again — I think this one is called High Peaks
Every step along this trail was breathtaking. The trail is well marked and is obviously well trafficked, but it was not crowded; we often had periods where we were the only people in sight, and we sat and watched the waterfalls in solitude. It was kind of overwhelming how wondrous it was.
Two things our kids really wanted to see on the trip to Iceland were the black sand beach and puffins. Opportunities to see both were about an hour drive from our Airbnb, so after visiting the Seljalandsfoss waterfall on our first day in the southern part of Iceland, we continued on to Reynisfjara Black Sand Beach near the fishing village of Vik.
The contrast of black sand against blue sky and crashing arctic waves was a jarring sight to see. It’s unlike what we’re used to when we go to a sandy shoreline where land meets the ocean.
Reynisfjara sea stacks and black sand beach
As if the black sand and smooth stones that sparkle in sunlight weren’t enough to marvel at, there’s a giant mass of green mountain that reaches out and touches the edge of the beach, along with the Reynisfjara sea stacks jutting out of the water near the beach, neither of which are anything like we’d see at home. The beach plants were different from what we find in dunes on the east coast of the US, too; I love these little succulents in the foreground.
Green mountain meets the sea at a black sand beach
Where the land mass meets the sea is a mass of basalt columns that blow my mind in their rectangular geometry, almost like crystals but on a much larger scale. The blackness of the sand also made it hard to get the exposure right on my camera :D.
Basalt columns at black sand beachBlack sand and shooting towards the sun: failI love the snow-capped mountain peeking through in the background
A few minutes up the road from the black sand beach is the Dyrhólaey promontory where you can often see puffins, along with getting great views of the beach we were just on. We drove over, and to get away from the crowds who gathered at the easy to access spot from the parking lot, we attempted a hike to the top of one set of cliffs. Instead, we ended up in a cold windy cloud that soaked us and provided no visibility.
Foggy hike
We headed back down to the easy to access spot and saw puffins immediately 😍. I don’t have a telephoto lens; I had to rely on zooming in on the raw image file from my 35mm lens, so these photos aren’t as high resolution as I wish they were, but they’ll do for memories.
Puffins!Hello puffinThey’re funny little birdsPuffins on a sunny day
The puffin cliff had some beautiful views as well. We really lucked out getting a sunny day for all of this.
View of sea stacks from puffin cliffVolcano, I don’t know which oneBlack sand beach from above
I cannot get over the abundance of waterfalls in the southern part of Iceland. We drive along the road and pass waterfall after waterfall streaming down the sides of mountains. At the base of nearly every one is a house with sheep and fluffy little lambs hopping about. Each household has its own private waterfall.
Nearly every one of these waterfalls would be an attraction that draws tourists any other place. Here, there are so many they become commonplace. “Look, another waterfall. And another. And another.” Only the big dramatic ones have parking lots. Which of course, we visited.
The first one we went to was Seljalandsfoss. It’s a 20 minute drive from our Airbnb, but because there are no trees here and our house is on a hill, we can see the fall in the distance from the deck out front. The Photographing Iceland book I bought before our trip warned that you will get wet when you visit this fall and walk around behind it. I reminded the family over and over to bring raincoats, extra shoes and socks, and clothes they don’t mind getting wet. Guess who forgot their raincoat? Yep, me. Luckily it was sunny and warm on our first visit, and I did remember a towel for my camera, so even though I got wet, I wasn’t miserable, and my camera stayed dry. Plus, we saw rainbows!
Seljalandsfoss waterfallSeljalandsfoss from behind200 ft waterfall drop: Seljalandsfoss, IcelandRainbow in the waterfall sprayRainbow in frontRainbow from behindRainbows and waterfalls
Within a 1 minute walk of the big fall, which dropped about 60 meters (200 feet), were three smaller waterfalls, lush green grass, and happy yellow flowers.
A little side waterfall within 100 m of SeljalandsfossPretty flowers and yet another waterfall another 100 m down the path
Just beyond those, another 1-2 minutes along the path, is a hidden fall, Gljufrabui, that drops through a hollow in the rock. Its name means “gorge dweller,” and the fall is tucked away behind a curtain of rock. To see the water drop, you hop along wet stones (or wade) through a stream under an arch in the hillside, which takes you into a hollowed out column full of spray and the thunder of splash. Inside, you can look up 40 meters (130 feet) to see sky through the hole in the mountainside and watch the water cascade down into the mossy cave. It was super wet in there and I didn’t get any pictures because my lens instantly misted up, but this site has some pretty cool photos.
Even closer to our Airbnb is another fall, Gluggafoss, that we happened on when we tried a different route home one day. Unlike Seljalandsfoss, which had restrooms, a coffee stand, and a parking lot full of visitors, Gluggafoss just has an informational sign and space for a few cars to park. There was one person on his way out when we pulled in, so we had the fall to ourselves for as long as we wanted to stay; nobody else arrived while we were there.
Top drop of Gluggafoss waterfallFull Gluggafoss waterfallBottom drop of Gluggafoss with Eyjafjallajökull volcano in the backgroundLittle pink flowers – I think it’s moss campion, Silene acaulis, an arctic and tundra wildflower 😍
Butterfly Mind 