Welcome to my first blog, I am hoping to keep this ongoing for the time being.
Some images get more attention
Nowadays we consume so much material on social media and truth to be told we generally do not stop scrolling for more than a second or two - then we keep going, It's very hard to grab viewers attention, let alone hoping that people stop and truly appreciate the image it self and the work that went into creating it - especially on the small screen of a phone.
I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I do not post on social media for the likes and the comments and I belive most of us do. However that's where the mass is and in order to get your work in front of as many eyes as possible that´s where it happens.
Some work gets good attention but ever so often images get far more attention than others and that is what sparked the idea of this blog as in my case those images are the ones that I've really worked hard for, planned for them and lastly and more importantly I previsualised the final outcome.
Those images often result in a fair bit of messages about the process etc. Therefore
I decided to write a quick blog about what went into the creation of this particular image and the thought process behind it.
The planning
Mt. Kirkjufell, the most photographed mountain in Iceland.
I wanted to create a different image than the "money shot" so while there many years ago (I am a frequent visitor) I started to look for different compositions. I knew about this "cave" which is nothing more than an undercut in the cliff, but during winter time water drips off the cliffs which creates this row of icicles, the perfect foreground/frame with the mountain visible inbetween.
To get there, behind the icicles, the pool infront of the waterfall has to be frozen and it requires a little bit of physical flexibility. It helps to be able to put one or both feet above the head. The place is tiny and fitting yourself plus a tripod in there is challenging to say the least. I've tried for this shot for a few years now but the icicles have always been in the wrong place and cutting into the mountain and for obvious reasons that does not work. During each visit to Mt. Kirkjufell during wintertime, I would always walk to this location and see if the conditions look like all the puzzels could fall into place.
And this winter it finally did, and even better than I had hoped for as I've never seen the river and the water so blue before.
The execution
The struggle begins.
As I mentioned, the space you have in there is tiny and finally in there, sliding in on my belly trying not to bump into the icicles and break them, I had to set up my tripod. I chose to bring my small tripod for this task. Once the tripod was somewhat stable I had to get it leveled, since this had to be a pano. Nearing the second half in my life, middle aged if you will, I realised I forgot my glasses. With the tripod no more then 10 cm in front of me I could not for the life of me see if the level bubble was in the middle or not, so I took my chance and went with the gut feeling. I mounted my #12mm #Laowa, aperature ƒ-11, and turned on the live view. Still, the camera was out of focus (the glasses - remember) so thank god for technology, focus peaking to the rescue. Horizontal format was not going to work, 12mm wasn't even wide enough for what I had in mind. This had to be a panorama image, so I flipped the camera to portrait orientation. Focused on the icicles and shot bracketed sequence of 3 images and a row of 6 images.
Next thing I did was to focus further in and shot another row.
Finally I merged those two sequenses in to a 2 different #panorama images as they had a different focus point and then blended them toghether in #photoshop.
So this is a focus stacked panorama.
All in all this ended up being very labour intensive on my computer, 38 images all together.
The final image is displayed at the top of this page.
So finally, after many years of trying, persistence and planning paid off.
If you plan to visit #Iceland in the wintertime and if you are heading to #Snaefellsnes peninsula make sure to visit #Kirkjufell and look for different compositions once you've got your money shot. One piece of advice, if you are going to try for this image keep in mind the ice can be thin and the water is both deep and COLD so be careful.
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