Iceland on the Rocks

I have wanted to visit Iceland for as long as I can remember. I don't know what it is about cold places that attracts me, but while the rest of Sweden heads South in both summer and winter, my son Johan and I head North. Lena my wife takes it in stride; she and our daughter Kristina have traveled to Spain for shopping and sun while Johan and I have packed our winter parkas in the middle of June and headed for places like Svalbard, Varangar, Norway and now Iceland.

The puffins at Latrabjarg are quite cooperative; taken with a macro lens.

Iceland has historically been one of the more expensive tourist countries, so until recently it was just a place I dreamed about. But that all changed in September of 2008 when the banking system in Iceland collapsed and shortly thereafter the entire Icelandic economy was on the rocks. In March of 2009 the value of the Icelandic krona had been cut in half and all of a sudden Iceland was looking like a pretty reasonably priced destination and Johan and I began creating our plans. We decided to take two weeks and explore the1,339 km Ring Road which basically travels along the entire coast of Iceland and add a trip to the West Fjords to explore the bird cliffs of Latrabjarg.

Rental cars are notoriously expensive on Iceland and the best time to book is 3-6 months ahead of time. The closer you get to summer the more expensive they become, and although we paid 1100 Euros for tiny Opel, by the time of our travel the price on the internet had more than doubled.

We landed in Keflavik at 10AM local and picked up our rental car across from the airport and immediately headed South, for the promised lands of bird and landscape photography. The Blue Lagoon was not on our itinerary, and would be saved for the day we managed to convince Lena and Kristina to join us.

After several hundred kilometers and many thousands of birds we reached the hostel near Skogafoss around 9PM. There were no restaurants open so we fired up our Primus stove and prepared a couple of freeze-dried trekking meals before heading back to Skogafoss to do some more photography.

Skogafoss at midnight

 As we continued the next morning we made our way to the glacial lagoon at Jokulsarlon, with more birds and landscape on the way.

Red-throated Diver

Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, Southern Iceland

Unfortunately we did not spend the night here. We should have; ideally you should photograph here at both sunset, night and sunrise. (Who needs sleep) Instead we spent the night in Egilsstadir as we made our way towards Myvatn, the Mecca for bird watchers and photographers.

Johan is impressed...

Myvatn was beyond our expectations, with a nesting gyr falcon in a public park.  Unfortunately the falcons have not bred here since then.

A pair of cooperative grebes provided hours of photo opps.

It took this tern 10 minutes to swallow this fish, and then it sat for another 20 minutes with the tail sticking out

Lake Myvatn is not just about birds, the landscape is spectacular; there are hotsprings 

and even wild orchids

Heading West we made our way towards Latrabjarg to photograph puffins and landscape

Goðafoss, West of Myvatn

Latrabjarg; that person standing way too close to the edge is Johan, don't tell my wife!

Think you're having a bad day?

After a couple of days at Latrabjarg we continued North on to the West Fjords to photograph arctic fox. This meant 100km over gravel roads through the mountains followed by a three hour boat ride in hard seas (after an inital delay of six hours) and then a three hour hike with 20 kilos of photo and camping gear but we did find our foxes.

The hike in...

Three 18 hour days at a distance from the den brought results

Unfortunately our time was running out and now the race was on to get back to Reykjavik. Luckily we were able to catch a ride on a boat that cut our travel time significantly.

We didn't even have time to stop in Reykjavik, instead we spent our last night in Keflavik to catch the 7AM flight back to Sweden. But we knew we would be back...

More images from our Iceland trips can be seen at:
http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/iceland

"Deadliest Catch" Eagle Photography...

My son Johan(15) and I were looking for some winter photo action. Most of the birds in Sweden have headed South and by now are somewhere in Spain or Africa. Not being so keen on the heat we had another alternative that we had been thinking about for a while - Alaska! (I think we've been watching too much "Deadliest Catch")

Winter flights to Anchorage were pretty reasonable; it was obviously not the tourist season, or maybe it was the connections. We flew with KLM Copenhagen - Amsterdam - Minneapolis/St.Paul - Anchorage. Even the lodging on the Homer Spit Road (where all the action is) was reasonably priced; so we booked five days in a one bedroom flat where we could do our own cooking, with a door directly onto the beach.

We picked up our rental car at the Anchorage airport, and then headed to our hotel room, exhausted after our 21 hours of travel we were asleep by 9:00PM. Our body clocks completely out of sync we woke up at 3AM and were ready to go. So we packed our gear into the car and headed to Denny's for a steak and egg breakfast. We sat next to three Alaska police who were probably wondering what kind of cruel trick I was playing on my son by getting him up at this hour. By 4:30AM we were on our way and as we left the lights of Anchorage behind us we drove off into the winter night; a black road, but the snowy mountains lighting up the sides of the road. The sun comes up at 8:45 in the middle of February but there is a long beautiful twilight which we thoroughly enjoyed. We made a few stops after the sun came up looking for other birds and animals, but there was not much to be seen until we ran into a bald eagle eating a dog that had been hit by a car. Not the glorious first encounter we were hoping for.

A few hours of traffic free driving on clear highways and we were in Homer exploring the town. It reminded me a bit of San Francisco, and we discovered that there were quite a few migrants from the Bay Area. There were eagles all along the Spit sitting on rocks, tree stumps, boats and buildings. My pulse was rising, and we took a few photos and then checked into the hotel. We did some shopping for dinner and breakfast groceries and made it another early night.

The next morning we headed out before sunrise to park next to Jean Keene's trailer where the eagles were being given a hand out of frozen herring.

Sitting in the back of our SUV with the back door up we had the perfect view of the incoming eagles.

While it's not the most natural environment for eagles, it's not much different from the bird feeders we have in our backyard at home, although we use sunflower seed, and not herring.

To get some pictures in different environments we took a couple of day trips with Mako Haggerty who runs Mako's Water Taxi who took us to some coves and inlets on the Kachemak Bay to feed and photograph the eagles and look for other wildlife.

So we had actually succeeded! We were on a crabbing boat (I think Mako had a couple of crabbing pots) in Homer, Alaska in the middle of February. Thankfully the seas were calm and the weather was beautiful.

On the water  we saw some of the other local wildlife like these seals,

And a mother sea-otter with her pup.

Our five days in Homer passed quickly. We had several thousand images each, and agreed that this was more fun than our winter photo trips to Norway where we sat in a freezing hide not being able to move or leave the hide during daylight hours.

We headed back to Anchorage for our final night and prepared for the 21 hour trip back to Sweden. As luck would have it we had a two hour layover in Seattle which gave us just enough time to have lunch at the airport with an old family friend, Marion Friederich. For our next trip we want to visit Alaska in the summer.

The equipment we used was the Canon 1DmkIII, 5DmkII, 300/2.8IS, 500/4IS and 100-400. 

For a few more images from our trip see 
http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/bald_eagles

2008 was for the Birds...

Looking back at my photography in 2008, I found many bird images. Here are a few of my favorites.


A windy day in April in a park outside New York

Easter in Spain together with the family was fantastic; with many photo opps including this vulture, but it is also the most expensive week for hotels...

A gyr falcon nest on solo trip to Northern Sweden

And in Southern Sweden the migratory birds are back from their winter in Africa and now have hungry mouths to feed

A week with my son Johan in Varanger, Norway resulted in thousands of images.

The loons in Sweden were busy with their young

As were a pair of cooperative great grey owls

Then a family trip to Norway with the in-laws in July brought great weather and impressive vistas

An August sunrise in Båstad, Sweden

A day off in Thailand after a business trip to India in October,

We ended the year with a week long trip to the Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Monument National Park. See the separate post for more pictures of that trip...

12960 photos kept in 2008; I'm happy with that. Now I just have to find the time to do something with them.

All the best for 2009...

http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher

The Grand Canyon in Winter

Since we live in Southern Sweden where the winters are dark, cold and wet, we often spend Christmas with my parents in San Diego, California, where the winters are about the same as a Swedish summer. But after 20 years of traveling to sunshine and beaches we were running out of things to see and do in the Southern California. So with a little arm-twisting and the promise of a good time in Las Vegas I managed to get the family to agree to a week long excursion including a trip to the Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and Monument National Park.

Las Vegas always lives up to expectations with the neon lights, comfortable hotel rooms, big-screen tv's, and plenty of good food. Johan and Kristina wanted to try their luck on the slots but thankfully the law said otherwise. So after a good nights sleep at the Luxor Hotel, we headed East to the Grand Canyon National Park where we had booked rooms at the Maswik Lodge.

A couple of good things about a winter visit to the Grand Canyon is that there are no crowds, and you are able to drive your car all along the canyon rim on roads reserved for buses during the summer season. For sunrise and sunset photography this saves you a few precious minutes and may you allow to visit and photograph several places when the light is at its best.

After checking in at the hotel we started with sunset at Hopi Point with several vantage points.

And then made some evening and night shots on the way back to the village.

Later when I got back to the hotel I discovered I my Blackberry was missing. So in the pitch black of the desert night I retraced my steps back to my where I had been photographing, and thankfully the little green LED of my Blackberry made it easy to find in the snow. Whew!

The next morning I was back before sunrise in -20F, while the rest of the family was snoozing away under their comforters.

 After a great breakfast we began our sightseeing trip east along the canyon rim before exiting the park and heading towards Page, Arizona to photograph Horseshoe Bend.

We arrived in Page in time to catch the sunset at Horseshoe Bend, but the light and clouds were not great, so I headed back the next morning to catch the sunrise instead. It's hard to see, but I am standing about one foot away from a 1000 foot sheer cliff. About the same as the two other photographers in the image below.

We would have liked to visit the Wave, but there were no spots available, so we will save that for another trip. Instead we also visited Lower Antelope Canyon before heading on to Monument National Park where we spent the night in the newly opened hotel at the visitors center.

Although we had planned on spending the entire next day at Monument Valley, a storm alert with threats of road closures and getting stuck chased us out as soon as we finished our breakfast. But I think the family was just as happy to be back in the sunshine of San Diego after a week of sub-zero in the high desert.
The images in this series are taken with the Canon 5DII and the 24-105L and 17-40L.In many cases I have taken multiple images and exposures to achieve HDR panormas. In the case of Horsebend the image is 9 images wide (portrait orientation) x 3 exposures of each image for a total of 27 images. Each set of three processed as HDR and then the finished HDR images stitched together in Photoshop.

A few more images from our trips in the Southwest can be seen at:
http://www.pbase.com/kingfisher/southwest