Adam Monk Photo Tours & Images Gallery

Yet another Icelandic waterfall, Selfoss is about 1km upriver from the massive Dettifoss on the Ölfusá river, in the North East of Iceland.  From Dettifoss (previous Blog Post), I ran all the way trying to get a shot with some of that great colour still in the sky…  Just made it.   The landscape around these two waterfalls is almost how I imagine the moon to be, but with water, or rather as if a glacier had just passed through here.  There are no trees and almost no vegetation at all in this region, just miles and miles of volcanic rock and boulders.  The only greenery around is the ubiquitous Icelandic moss, that grows over the lava fields softening the landscape.  It’s a place where you can really imagine yourself a million years in the past just after an Ice age, or in fact in the middle of one.

This Image of Selfoss in Iceland was shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 50mm f3.5 lens.

I think it’s time for a couple more waterfalls from Iceland, the country that has literally thousands of waterfalls!  This first one is Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Iceland and thus Europe.  The vast volume of water and the huge drop over the edge into the ravine below means that this is a very wet place to stand, the spray from this waterfall sometimes extends hundreds of metres into the air above and around the falls.  The day I took this shot I had planned this as my sunset destination, though as I had so many unscheduled stops for roadside attractions (See previous Blog posts for explanation) I barely made it.  The weather had been overcast and rainy all day, which is perfect for Icelandic landscapes, but it didn’t look like I would get much of a sunset at all.  Well I couldn’t actually see the sun setting, but the clouds opened up enough to allow some great colour just after sunset.  The wild colours in the sky, combined with the massive waterfall and the bleak treeless landscape made for a surreal and otherworldly look to the image.

Image of Dettifoss waterfall Iceland, shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the 50mm f3.5 lens… with lots of wiping of the front lens element…

A bit of wild Icelandic coastline today, I think it may be time soon for some more waterfalls, or perhaps some ice as Perth swelters at 41° today!  Later though, for today it’s Hvítserkur and a piece of wild Icelandic coastline from the Eastern shore of the Vatnsnes Peninsula in the North West Region.  The road to this spot is not really a road at all, more of a series of closely spaced potholes strung together in a line… Done is such a cunning way that in avoiding one you hit two or three even bigger ones.

I arrived here late one evening in my camper van, thoroughly shaken about and spent a restful night listening to the waves pounding on the 15 metre high stone stack that is called Hvítserkur, which means “White Coat” in Icelandic, due to all the bird droppings…  Not so romantic.  Much more romantic is the legend about the monolith.  It said to be an ancient troll that was caught in the daylight and turned to stone, preventing it from destroying the bells of the local monastery.

By dawn the sea had calmed and the wind was still, just perfect for a quiet walk down the rocky beach for sunrise.

Both these images shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the 28mm f4 lens.

Happy New Year!

I almost forgot, we are starting a new year with lots of new possibilities.  Still a few spots on my Icelandic photography Tour in August of this year, its going to be awesome!

Its taken longer than expected to arrange and finalise, but my Cambodia Ancient Temples Photo Workshop is finally up and ready for booking.  I’ve totally re-engineered the workshop this year, so it’s completely different to last years Vietnam and Cambodia Tour.  I found trying to see all of Vietnam and Cambodia in two weeks was too much and we couldn’t spend enough time in any location.  Plus there was lots of flying and changing hotels which eats up valuable time and is very tiring.  So this year I’ve focused (excuse the pun) on the part of last years tour that was my favourite, the few days we spent in Siem Reap and the Angkor ruins in Cambodia.

Angkor Temple Complex.

On last year’s tour we only spent a few days in this amazing place, and I found it was not enough.  So much so that after the completion of the tour I returned by myself to spend another two full weeks exploring Siem Reap and particularly the Angkor Temple complex and I loved it!  Angkor is over 400 square kilometres of  ancient cities and temples buried under the jungles of tropical Cambodia and is the most amazing lost city I have ever seen.  I love ancient ruins and lost civilisations and I have explored quite a few, from the jungles of Central and South America, and the desert plains of the Maya in Mexico to ancient Roman, Greek and Byzantine ruins in Europe.  Angkor beats them all! Read the rest of this entry »

This is another almost side of the road shot.  I didn’t actually shoot it from the side of the road, but I did see the house as I was driving and so pulled over to have a look (see previous posts about the difficulty of puling over in Iceland).  I ended up hiking over fields and climbing over fences for nearly an hour until I could get the view I wanted, with the river and the power lines receding into the background and the little house placed just right to really give scale to the mountains behind it.  Or rather, for the mountains to dwarf the tiny house in the landscape.

I don’t think it’s a house that’s lived in all year round, it seems more like a summer pasture house for a shepherd, or perhaps a holiday house  for hobbits?  Imagine the real estate ad… For Sale, small isolated cottage with large mountainous backyard, ideally situated with river views and plentiful supply of electricity…

This image shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 50mm f3.5 lens.

Iceland photo Tour, August 2015 half Full.

It’s only been a couple of days since I sent out the newsletter and my Photographic Tour to Iceland next August is now half full.