Adam Monk Photo Tours & Images Gallery

The second night at Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon I got another opportunity to see some more Aurora Borealis over the Vatnajökull Glacier, twice in a row after no clear nights on the rest of the trip.  This evening I had moved around and set up camp on the side of the Glacier Lake to get a different perspective and I was completely by myself in the erie silence, not even a breath of wind.  It was almost a religious experience!

Both these images shot on the Sony A7-r and the Canon 24mm f1.4L lens & lens adaptor.  I experimented a bit with exposure and found that on that camera ISO 800 was preferable at about f2.8 and 10-15 seconds exposure… But I had a nearly full moon to light the Glacier and the Icebergs.  On a moonless night you will need much more exposure to get the scene visible and not just the Northern Lights in the sky.  ISO 1250 allowed me more depth of Field at f4 or even f5.6, but it was too noisy, especially in the reflections.

Iceland Photo Tour August 2015.

I’m getting closer to having al the details finalised for my Photographic tour to Iceland in August 2015, I’m hoping to have all details up and be accepting bookings in a week or so.  I will be running this tour with well known Icelandic photographer Iurie Belegurschi (more about him later) so will be increasing the numbers slightly to a maximum of 12 people.  I already have several people on the waiting list for this tour, If you would like to be on it to click HERE to go to the page to send me an email.

I had hoped to see some Northern Lights during my trip to Iceland, but by evening 7 of my 10 day trip I had only a couple of clear nights and no Northern Lights.  I had a full moon by the second day, so I began to think that I probably wouldn’t see the Aurora Borealis with the bright light of the full moon… Until the second last night when I arrived at Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, at about 9pm (after many hours of driving).

When I pulled up there was a line of tripods set up in the carpark with a whole bunch of excited photographers buzzing around.  The sky was clear, the moon was out and it looked like this…

Apparently it had begun only a couple of minutes before I got there, full moon and all.  So you can see the Aurora Borealis with a full moon, and the great thing is that the moon lights up the landscape beautifully.  The 2 photographers on the skyline of the hill on the right side add a nice perspective and the Vatnajökull Glacier is visible glowing in the background.

Click on one of the above images, and then click on the right or left side of the image to scroll through each of the bigger versions, and you will see how the lights move in the sky.  The images change brightness due to slightly different exposures (I was experimenting) and clouds moving across obscuring the moon.  These images were shot on the Sony A7-r and a canon 24mm f1.4L lens (with an adaptor).  There was not enough light for the Hasselblad H4D-60 as it has a CCD sensor (not great in low light), Hasselblad wouldn’t lend me the new H5D-50C with the CMOS sensor…

I think I need to put some Ice in Iceland, so far all my Iceland images have been showing verdant green, but no Ice.  Yes there is ice in Iceland, and in fact Iceland is home to some of Europe’s biggest glaciers and they cover about 11% of Iceland’s land area.

Often glaciers form lakes and at their foot as the glacier melts… No, that can’t be right, Tony Abbott says global warming is a myth, the glaciers are not melting!

Vatnajökull Glacier

Jokulsarlon is particularly beautiful glacier lake at the foot of the Vatnajökull Glacier on the South coast of Iceland.  And first thing in the morning, it looks like this…

This image shot at dawn on the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the 100mm f2.2

Still avoiding waterfalls for now, I thought I would post some more shots from the side of the road on my road trip around Iceland.  This one shot just a few minutes before the previous post “Epic Icelandic Landscape with Church” as I was descending out of the hills and the Eastern Fjords of Iceland onto the South Coast region.

The mountains in the Eastern Fjord region are stunning, at least the bits I could see.  But as I had been driving through pea soup dense fog for about 40 minutes I was missing most of it.  To make it even more fun it was an amazingly windy road.  As I descended out of the mountains the mist cleared giving me a spectacular view over a primordial landscape of mountains, mossy lava fields and boiling skies… That is not this photo.

Unfortunately some idiot in an F250 truck was trying to shove his bumper up my exhaust pipe at this stage and there was nowhere to stop, so I had to wait until I was at the bottom of the very steep descent where the overly hormoned driver could pass me and I could pull over.  So same valley, just a different viewpoint.  I’ll get the other viewpoint next time, which will be next August 2015.

Image shot with the Hasselblad H4D-60 and 50mm f3.4 lens.

Looking back on the last few posts of Iceland it looks like Iceland is just a land of waterfalls.  Not that that’s bad, but it’s only a fraction of the story… I do have many more shots of waterfalls to go yet!  So just for a change, here is a shot without a waterfall visible.  Instead I have a tiny Icelandic Church, and a whole bunch of mountains.  I love these wild cloudy skies, so much more spectacular than endless blue.  Some days in Iceland the cloudy skies were so amazing I went out and just took photos of clouds… Just clouds.

Click on the image to get a bigger version and see the church… or you can look at the zoomed crop below.  There are advantages to having 60 Mega pixels to play with.

This image was shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 100mm f2.2 lens.

Land of Ice and Fire Photographic Tour 2015

If you would like to see Iceland up close and personal, I am running a photographic tour there next year for 10 days beginning August 25th.  I’m still working out the final details of the itinerary and costings, but all the details will be on my Iceland Photo Tour Page as soon as it’s all finalised.  From that page you can also send me a quick email if you would like to go on the mailing list for early warning.