It’s so cold in Pittsburgh right now, it could be Iceland. Here are a few photos from our last Iceland trip. I captured these at the glacier lagoon and diamond beach.
Tracy Arm Fjord
Here are a few photos from our excursion to Tracy Arm Fjord Alaska to see the glacier.
Hard to tell in this photo, but they claim this glacier is 400 feet tall sea cliff edge
Iceland Glacier Watershed
MJ and I traveled 30 minutes down a gravel road to see a glacier lagoon in this northwest area of Iceland only to find out climate change had eliminated it. The glacier has retreated up the mountain, but the runoff from the melting glacier continues to feed this area, which makes for interesting photos.
Iceland Glacier Lake
During our 2021 Iceland trip, I went off by myself one night to go find this hidden glacier bay. I traveled a long distance down a path (calling it a road gives it too much credit…calling it a off road trail or path is probably more accurate).
Once I got to the end, I climbed a large hill to find the glacier lake and glacier coming down the mountain. From the front of the lake, I flew the drone over a mile to get to the start of the glacier and captured this photo looking straight down.
Icebergs in Iceland
Both of our trips to Iceland were amazing. I don’t know if there will be a third, but I’m hoping someday.
I took this photo near Diamond Beach, inside Jokulsarlon Iceberg Lagoon on the southeastern coast of the country. Wonderful spot.
Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon
I’m sure on Super Bowl Sunday my post should be football related. But I’ve been thinking a bunch about our 2021 Iceland trip. So, you’re getting this photo from the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon on the southeastern side of the country. Great spot!!
Glacier Runoff
I took these two drone photos looking down on the glacier runoff in the Westfjords area of Iceland. It creates a braided river as it runs towards the Atlantic Ocean.
Vatnajokull Tongue
Vatanjokull, a huge glacier, takes up a large part of Iceland in the southeastern corner. This specific portion of the glacier, which is called a tongue, was right behind our hotel. Well sort of right behind…more like 4 km down an extremely rough trail that required a 4-wheel drive vehicle.
If you don’t know, a glacier tongue is a small finger shaped portion of a glacier that usually comes down off the mountain. The scale of this tongue and the entire glacier is impossible to understand in this photo. Sometimes a photo just doesn’t do a location justice (think about trying to capture the beauty of the Grand Canyon in a photo). You’ll have to trust me when I say, what you can see in this photo is probably less than 1% of the entire glacier.
Again, you can’t tell from this photo, but there are dozens of icebergs in the water that have broken free from the glacier. I didn’t know either until I piloted the drone over them. The distance from where I took this photo to the icebergs in front of the glacier was just over a mile. I guess that gives you some sense of the scale.
I had this wonderful spot all to myself from about 9pm to 11pm. It wouldn’t surprise me if I was the only one to visit this spot all day…. Just based on the condition of the trail and the location. You could tell it doesn’t get many visitors like Iceland’s more popular spots.
Godafoss Iceland
Today I have a 7 exposure auto-bracketed HDR image of the beautiful Godafoss. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me. This waterfall is amazing and I took pictures from just about every angle possible. I hope you enjoy it as well.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.
Top Ten Photo Moments of 2013 (for me)
Below is a list of what I consider my top ten photographic moments for 2013. Most of them made the list because I enjoyed the environment, liked the history, cherished the experience and/or just had a great time. As you look at the list, I’ve included links to former blog posts (which includes pictures) from these events. Feel free to browse the list and leave a comment below about your favorite 2013 photo moment.
10. Pittsburgh Skylines – It is hard to get a bad photo of the Pittsburgh skyline. Over the last year, I probably photographed it from a dozen locations at all hours of the day.
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9. Pitt vs. FSU – Little did I know when I photographed this game early in the season that I was watching the next Heisman Trophy Winner – Jameis Winston. He played a great game against Pitt. By the way, I enjoyed all the Pitt football games I photographed.
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8. Abandoned Facilities with Brad and Dave: We photographed an abandoned school, abandoned hospital, and Pennsylvania’s Abandoned Turnpike. These were my favorite locations among the tons of locations we visited. My favorites over the year were the urban explorations we did at these three abandoned locations. I love any old abandoned facility that has cool old architecture, a history, etc… They just don’t make buildings like they used to!
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7. Eastern State Penitentiary – This was a special treat. I had an entire day to myself in Philly, so I went to the one place I wanted to see. I spent about 5 hours wandering around this old facility examining every room, learning the history and photographing some amazing locations.
6. San Francisco – This was our first visit to San Francisco and we had a great time. I had a huge list of potential locations to visit, but we ran out of time. Some of the highlights from this trip were photographing the Redwood Trees in Muir National Monument, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
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5. Rickett’s Glen State Park – Before I moved to Pennsylvania, a past coworker (Melissa) told me about this state park. So for three years I waited for the right time to visit this park. MJ and I took a weekend to visit this amazing location. During the late 1930’s this place was supposed to become a national park. A little thing called World War 2 interrupted this transaction. My reason for visiting was to hike the waterfall trail. This 3-mile loop has 21 named waterfalls ranging in size from 15 to 94 feet tall. Plus there are dozens (maybe more then a 100) small waterfalls as well. I was in North America waterfall heaven.
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4. Bull Shark Scuba Diving – Something about sharks is always a cool experience in my book. I’ve dived and photographed Tiger Sharks, Great White Sharks, Reef Sharks, Lemon Sharks, Nurse Sharks, etc… In December, we had a great trip to the Puerto Morelos area of Mexico and the cherry on top was photographing Bull Sharks at 60 feet deep.
3. New York City Skyline from the Brooklyn Bridge Park – This was a very cool experience. I was down at this park around 11pm on a Saturday night. I met another photographer at that spot (who I’ve maintained contact with) and of course I got some great shots of the city skyline along with other great pictures of the city over the course of our trip.
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2. Lions vs. Steelers – I don’t get to see my favorite team (Detroit Lions) in person very much. So to get the opportunity to photograph this game from the sideline at Heinz Field was great. While at the game, I got to visit with an old co-worker and friend (Steve), who I haven’t seen in almost 13 years. To bad the Lions lost, but I loved it anyway. I also had a great time photographing all the Steelers games I covered all season long.
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And the top photographic moment of 2013 is:
1. Iceland – Our trip to Iceland was an amazing experience and I loved every photographic moment. Afterward, MJ admitted that it was beautiful, even though she wasn’t excited about this location. I snapped thousands of photos and made the most of the limited time we had in this impressive country. Some of the highlights were the beautiful Puffins, thousands of waterfalls, glaciers, hot springs, amazing vistas, and great people. You have to visit this country and it is only a 4.5-hour flight from Boston. So what’s your excuse for not going??
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Thanks for continuing to read my blog. I hope you enjoyed 2013 and my Top 10 list as much as I did. Don’t forget to leave a comment below about your favorite moment. Thanks and Happy New Year.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.
Dettifoss Waterfall - Northern Iceland
For today’s photo, I am going back to the Iceland well. Here is a 7 exposure auto-bracketed HDR photo of Dettifoss waterfall in northern Iceland. MJ and I had to drive 45 minutes down a very rough dirt road to find this huge waterfall. I really thought our rental car might fall apart out in the middle of nowhere traveling to this location. If it did, we would have been in trouble. There is really nothing out there. This waterfall is in Vatnajokull National Park and is the most powerful waterfall in Europe. It is 330 feet wide and drops 150 feet with massive force. Thankfully we were standing on the side of the falls with the wind to our backs. So the mist and water from the falls were blowing away from us. To get an idea of scale, look closely and you can see tiny human figures on the other side of the waterfall.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.
Jokulsarlon Iceberg Alley 2
Back in July I posted a picture on my blog from this area of
Iceland. You can see that HERE. Along with information about this
location, how the iceberg are created, where they go, etc… I liked this location so much, I
decided to share another photo with you.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.
Jokulsarlon Iceberg Alley
Vatnajokulsbjoogardur Glacier on the southeastern side of
Iceland is one of the largest glaciers in the world. One of the glacier tongues reaches down to Jokulsarlon lake
where the glacier calves off and forms new icebergs. The icebergs float through the lake, down through a small
river and get dumped into the ocean.
This is an HDR image of one of the icebergs with the glacier in the
background.
This was one of my favorite locations in Iceland. I don’t think the picture does this location any justice. It was very cool and I could have spent hours and hours here.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the picture above.