Eyjafjallajokull - glacial tongue and lagoon

...I would value your opinions as ever - regards, Nick.

Highland Icefields are semi-continuous sheets of glacier ice occupying many square kilometres, burying many of the features of the underlying landscape. They are most common in polar and sub-polar regions such as Iceland. This high altitude ice may flow downwards from the icefields as Outlet Glaciers such as the one depicted above. These tongues of ice, typically tens of kilometers long, flow downhill into regions well below the snow line into glacial lagoons of melt water where ice may break off to form small icebergs as shown above.

Ahh, my old buddy Nick. Here's my honest critique ont this one. I like the composition, like the way that the ice leads and ends at the bottom right corner. I also like the fact that it's a glacier photo, don't see them that often. The only issue I have is that the sky looks blown out, meaning it's a bit overexposed. Did you use a grad ND filter on this shot?

William, you are probably right about the sky - if only I had had a graduated neutral density filter, but alas my camera bag was empty! - perhaps some clever photoshop fan could do something to improve the image?

 

...I do however think that the burnt out sky adds to the cold, cold feel of the shot, and believe me, it was so very cold, and so very far from anywhere!

 

Fond regards, Nick.

Hello Nick, this looks agonisingly cold. I expect the sun was behind that cloud burning it out. But I'm with you, I think you want to keep the overall frozen feel.

 

In the alps, glaciers are fine as long as it's cold. When the warm up in the sun, they become very unpleasant and dangerous places to be.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing more iceland. Is this a new film scanner, or films processed to disk?

 

Cheers. Pete

Thanks Pete - I visited the Grossglockner Glacier in Austria in the summer of '91 and watched hugh chuncks of ice break off! Also I was lucky enough to walk in hobnail boots on the Fox Glacier in New Zealand '95; but the Glacier shown above was much more inaccessible - largely because of the frozen lagoon!

 

You would love Iceland, I'm already planning a return visit in the summer, despite things being so very, very expensive there!

 

Alas, I still have no working scanner, but I was able to have the negatives scanned to disk at my local pro lab! - The remainder of my S.Africa photographs will still have to wait.

 

Fond regards, Nick.

The rapid recession of glaciers often leads to masses of ice becomming detatched from the snout and producing tunnels and caves such as this one amongst the Moraines at the foot of the glacier.

 

...note the beautiful blues of the 2000 year old ice! - the dirt covering the ice is a result of the abrasion of the bedrock by the massive grinding forces of the moving ice!

 

Nick.

I'm also with you Nicholas, I like the sky as it is... Excellent shot!

Yes indeed! Point the camera towards the light - great atmosphere and I don't mind the blown out sky. The terrain looks forbidding and menacing.