Snow covered jetty

Hints of life beneath the snow and rocks, yellow ochre grass made me stop the car, get out and photograph this unknown, unnamed jetty in northwest Iceland.

Akranes

First inhabited by Irish settlers in the 9th century, this beautiful city seats north of Hvalfjörður. Skipped the snow clad city core to find green rocks on the west side by the ocean.

Photographing Iceland in Winter

The winterland will always be exotic to me, and winter being my favorite season it is no doubt I enjoy photographing sceneries like these more than anything else and any other season. I have been to Iceland many times in the past during winter but somehow managed to avoid winter storms until 2022. Call it a fortunate or unfortunate fate but this has got to be the most unique of all visits to Iceland, not only from photography PoV but also the experience of driving in blinding blizzard through mountain passes in search for clear skies, search for a hot meal at 3 am in the morning amidst a pandemic, to name a few.

From the moment we landed in Keflavik till now there has been very little “gaps” in between snowfall and strong wind. This was certainly not the weather I was hoping for when I booked the trip in Aug ‘21 but I was mentally prepared for it about two weeks before the trip after looking at extended weather forecast. We packed our best winter gear for the trip and it pay off well. Although it is not extremely cold (temperature in the 20s F) the feels like was in the teens and sometimes single digit Fahrenheit especially at night with high wind blowing fine snow dust across the plains. The weather is not deterring us at all from going out every day, and capture these amazing winter sceneries across the west side of the country (I plan to drive eastwards later in the week).

While most of the roads in Reykjavik’s vicinity are cleaned very frequently, the highways became frozen as we went farther from the city. The temperatures being way below freezing was a good thing: kept the roads dry and therefore, less slippery. I have a Honda CR-V with studded tires that has decent handling on the snow. In between shooting I kept the camera inside a woolen hat so that the battery does not drain quickly, kept my hands warm in the insulated pockets of my jacket because I do not own fitted gloves for my wide hands short fingers and at times used the car to shield the tripod from wind gusts.

Sunrise is around 9:30 am and sunset around 5 pm everyday. Waking up at 3 am due to jet lag actually helped me get to destinations before sunrise, ahead of tour buses arriving with people.

I would like to think this type of weather with more than a foot of snow around coastal Iceland is not common, since it is so close to the ocean, making this trip a special and unique experience.

Seconds to sunrise

Sun rays peeking through an expected gap in the clouds seconds before sunrise.

Frosted power lines

Besides the primary subject in this photograph, snow covered power lines illuminated by car headlights…

It was the weekend night out on the plains east of the Cascades, I was testing (new) Hasselblad’s widest lens for X system: the XCD 4/21. Arriving at this scene I realized very quickly it was not the best lens to frame the shot. There was only two ways to fill the view with the subject (the house): walk closer to it or use a less wide lens. A combination of sense of being respectful to private property and deep snow on the ground made me not choose the first option, and a desire to stick to the new lens made the second option less savory.

Stacks in tide

For a world less square [from XPAN brochure]

Far from home

I don’t know many people who would drive four hours for a sunset but there are creatures like me - they exist!

32 sec at f/16, ISO 100 Hasselblad XCD 4/45P

32 sec at f/22, ISO 100 Hasselblad XCD 4/45P

Another weekend, another place to shoot at sunset.

Tacoma - half day

The weather changed from clear sunny skies to rolling storm clouds in just an hour, providing me excellent opportunities to shoot in varied lighting and other variance while I learn to shoot with my (new) medium format camera. When you’re shooting with the (Hasselblad) X1DII 50c, autofocus (AF) is not your friend. There are two ways to operate or get help with manual focus (MF): focus peaking and zoom. In my experience, I found focus peaking to be very unreliable, or perhaps I was using it wrong. The earlier part of the day while using focus peaking, most of my shots turned out soft but I got lucky with a handful.

Later in the day, I started using magnify focus method and got lot more reliable result. The camera being on the tripod (for long exposures) made it easy to use this MF method.

All in all, I am very happy to be shooting in medium format: the large sensor and large pixels makes a difference added Hasselblad color science and DR. I am not going to express myself on how much I love the physical design of this camera, and keeping that aside the features I love the most about this new system based on a very short period of playing with it are:

In-lens shutter system eliminating vibrations especially for those extremely long exposures
Appealing and somewhat acceptable noise grain at high ISO, keeping aside the fact that you’re getting less noise than FF cameras. Say goodbye to destructive noise reduction steps in post-processing tools like LR
Superb color reproduction and sharpness
Greater dynamic range, even better than (long time king) Sony FF cameras I own
Weather sealed - I have not taken the camera out in the rain but when you are living in the PNW chances are you will, very soon

Birds of sunset

Gulls on a beach at sunset

Steel and concrete

Spotlight

In the scene I could barely notice the column of sunlight illuminating Maylor Pt. across the bay. As I hurried my way out from a late lunch/early dinner to the wharf looking for signs of sunset, this scene caught my eye…

The green glow in the sky

Not that long ago, I did not own an insulated jacket. Instead, I’d put on layers and then a rain coat before venturing out in the night during winter photoshoots. These photographs come from one of those trips., a rather family/personal trip where the main focus was to get away for a few days and drink every night till you’re stupid.

I was not expecting Northern Lights that night - it was the day we traveled into Iceland but we were not jet lagged probably due to high levels of adrenaline (and the anticipation of a weekend vacation ahead). We went out of the city only because it was the only night we did not have any other activity planned. It turned out to be one of the best nights to watch the green glow over us - considering winter weather and driving conditions at the time of the year.

Hurricane Ridge

The Hurricane Ridge standing tall above Kingston

2022: Day One

Western Washington is still clad in ice and snow remnants from two winter storms since Christmas of 2021. There is no ice on the beach but the way to it had plenty, rendering the travel to the beach somewhat inconvenient if not difficult and dangerous.

In terms of golden hour quality, an hour before sunset the scene looked promising but soon clouds moved in. Regardless, it was a memorable dusk: As the tide receded I walked farther towards the waterline with the camera on the tripod, taking 1/2-2 seconds exposure shots, occasionally retreating for a rogue wave. The sky turned pink for a bit, the clouds however remained unlit. I was more fascinated by the retreating bubbles on small waves that were consistent with the wind blowing north.

Winter overcast illuminated by city lights

Generally speaking winter sunsets in the Pacific Northwest are not dramatic especially if compared with the sunsets over the Great Plains or in the tropics. But sometimes we have to make the best of the given conditions and lighting available to photograph at dusk or dawn.

This was such an evening, it was right after the first snow storm of December, 2021. We had approximately a day of dry weather when we decided we should go check out the coast, see if we are fortunate to see a beautiful sunset. The weather however was not very cooperative but distant cities (possibly Blaine and Vancouver) lit up the frozen winter clouds over the horizon just the right amount to colorize the backdrop and foreground, allowing me to capture these images.

This is probably the final blog post of 2021, I wish you a very happy and better 2022.

The successful search for the Sun

This weekend’s weather forecast for western Wash was not out of place nor extraordinary: overcast with chance of rain and storm likely to continue through next week. But we were determined to find the sun, and shoot timelapse videos.

Rapid

I consider myself proficient in swimming and yet I dread the water. Probably there is a genetic or hereditary element to it added to culture and traditions in growing up in India. Also my best friend died in a drowning accident might have leveraged this fear by a few degrees.

But it’s not hard to block that instinct otherwise taking photographs like this one would not have been possible.

Sun on the underwater rocks

Tahoe

Clear blue from above

Limestone towers (Tufa)

Two hours past noon I wasn’t sure if I wanted to drive two and half hours south for a sunset. But if you know me well and have heard about adventures (and misadventures) from years of traveling, you might have guessed this was an easy decision…

Besides a somewhat dangerous slippery road down the hill to the lakeside, the day was immensely enjoyable. Patience is key when waiting for vermillion skies after sunset: if you are early it’s too bright and if you missed the peak, the clouds might have turned into silhouettes. While these two photographed (taken with an iPhone) does not present the best example of patience it was nonetheless a beautiful sunset over the tufas on the south rim of Mono Lake today.