Iceland Part 1

Since elementary school, when I first saw pictures of Iceland in a geography book, and well before my interest in photography, I’ve always dreamed of making a trip to this beautiful country. The timing and finances weren’t perfect, but I decided if they weren't perfect now, they never would be, so I needed to just do it. I finally made the trip this September, and I am so happy I did.

I rented a car and drove around the southern coast of Iceland for 9 days. I found hidden waterfalls, walked on glaciers, took crazy hikes, pet wild Icelandic horses, met amazing people, drank great beer, took a boat through an iceberg filled lagoon, crashed my car -- I could go on and on; it was an intense trip filled with excitement. The scenery changes by the mile and it is so different than any other place I have visited. Every second you are on the road you are simultaneously in awe of what is around you and also in wonder of what you will find at the next location because it will certainly be completely different.  

Since this was a dream of mine for so long I went into the trip almost scared that I wouldn't take great pictures. I am not a landscape photographer and I definitely don't feel as comfortable as I do when I can fully control the light and subject. Ultimately, I decided that this trip was going to be for me, rather than about taking good photographs, but if I happened to get some good photos along the way, then that would just be an added bonus. I think having that mindset and not forcing it made the pictures much better than they would have been otherwise. Overall, I had an incredible trip and I can't wait to go back and see more of the island. If you are taking a trip or thinking of taking a trip to Iceland, please don't hesitate to comment or email me, I would love to talk to you about it. 

Jökulsárlón

Famous iceberg lagoon with the most incredible blue hues you have ever seen. I came here two days in a row, one sunny day and one overcast and it was such a huge difference both days, the weather changes quickly. 

Gönguleið um Fimmvörðuháls

If you climb up the the stairs and then climb over the fence past Skógafoss, which is also incredible, you get to this beautiful hiking trail along the river that leads to Skógafoss. 

Jökulsárlón

While on a small boat we went past massive icebergs the size of city blocks. The black lines you see in the ice are from when a volcanic eruption laid ash across the top and then snow and rain formed a layer of ice again on top of that. 

Raufarhólshellir

A Lava cave thatI would have never known about, had it not been for my good friend Jess. It is not easily visible, it was just a hole in the ground, but once inside is the fourth longest lava cave in Iceland revealed itself. It was gorgeous. The texture of this moss on the walls was so thick and sponge-like. 

Svínafellsjökull

After a very long hike which included walking on this glacier for a while, I took a step back to admire the scale and beauty of this scene. It will never leave me. 

Glymur

The tallest waterfall in Iceland, which is proceeded by one of the most amazing hikes in the world. Just to get here you have to cross several small rivers, climb through caves and up steep mountains.

Haalda

A mountain range in the south that struck me with its amazing colors and ice. I could have spent an hour just watching the clouds move over it. 

I will be posting a second part to this series with several more pictures from my trip. A few of the photos from above are being shown in a gallery in Los Angeles this Friday and Saturday (Dec. 11-12) with several other talented artists that I have done shows with in the past. I am very excited to show some of this new work and share it with my friends and family. The event goes from 6pm-11pm both nights and the address is

1226 W 7th St

 Los Angeles, CA 90017

Alyssa Kathryn

I have hit a rough spot in my life lately and unfortunately, my blog took a hit because of it. Sometimes in life you hit unexpected bumps in the road and they can knock you back pretty bad, the past few months have been hard for me, I have lost a few people in my life, and I have had a difficult time getting back on my feet. I am so grateful to have photography as an outlet to get through times like this, it has helped me more than I thought it would through several difficult times in my life, recently it hasn't been any different. 

I met up with this lovely model, Alyssa Kathryn, and we connected right away on our ideas and what we really wanted out of this shoot. She was a champ and didn't mind that it was just me and her, I was wrangling lights, having her on the edge of several large cliffs and making her hike through some pretty rough terrain in some shoes that are definitely not made for anything of the sort. What came to be obvious pretty quick was that my large light/softbox was in no way going to work with the wind and just me to place it so I had to go out of my element and just use natural light. Lucky for me there was some nice cloud cover so I wasn't dealing with direct sunlight. I was actually very happy to have to try something I don't usually do, but shoot in a way that would yield results I would not only be happy with, but would actually be something in my style of lighting. I was very happy I was able to make that happen. (side note: one of these I actually did use a light, bonus points if you can figure out which one and where the light was). I also decided to pull out my 35mm film camera and shoot a roll, which I am super happy I did. I have been concentrating so much on my digital and medium format stuff that my dear 35mm has been neglected. There are a few scans in this gallery, but I am really excited to work on them in the darkroom, a process I feel like every photographer should at least try. 

Sometimes we lose people, and sometimes we are forced out of our comfort zone, we have to take a new path whether we choose to or not, sometimes we come prepared to shoot with lights and there are high winds. We must take these challenges and use them to our advantage. 

1966 Mustang

A good friend of mine has had this '66 Mustang for a while now, and after a long time of always chatting about it, we finally got around to making a day of shooting it. I really like rolling shots of cars, and I was lucky enough to enlist the help of pretty much an entire team to get these. A fun day to say the least.

These shots were done from another car that I was riding in the back of, just rolled the windows down, nothing too crazy. I wanted to get some motion for the rolling shots, but wanted to try to keep the depth of field a bit shallow, the only way to get that to happen in bright sunlight, that I know of is to use a nd filter, just like in my last post, but this time to drag the shutter as well as keep the aperture as wide open as I could.

Luna Moth

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of working with Hannah, what a wonderful person to work with. Some people are just naturals. This was one of those types of shoots where you have the hardest time just picking the selects because you are so happy with every frame, not a common occurrence. Was lucky to have the wonderful help from Sam Ploskonka, she did the hair but also planned the majority of the shoot. As with most things, it is so much better with a good team. 

This was a set that I have wanted to do for quite a while. I enjoy shooting into the sun so I can use it as an interesting rim light. I used a large octobox to light her, then a 2 stop ND filter to keep the depth of field as shallow as I could. KISS (keep it simple stupid) is usually the key here, since I have no dedicated assistant and I am on location in equestrian area with uneven ground, one light is pretty much your only option, and yes even that one light fell over and broke one of my radio triggers.

I think I may do more blogs where I go through my thought process during the shoot, and how I  achieved the look that I did. If you are interested in that then follow me on twitter, or subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog. Or if you had a specific question you would like answered you can ask here, tweet, or email me. 

A Bachelor Party

What has now been a while, one of my very best friends, a guy I consider a brother, got married. These are a few shots from the bachelor party which was spent deep sea fishing.