23

ƒ/1.7 | 1/60 | ISO 400

Orange is never a color that photographs well, and yet, the Leica Q tackled it with ease. I saw these two at the opening of a new food hall here in Reykjavik a while back and couldn’t resist the surreptitiousness nature of their orange coats and bald heads making it look like a glitch in the matrix.

22

ƒ/14 | 1/125 | ISO 400

Esja

This photograph is a favorite of mine and most of the people I show my work; especially those who know the magic of Esja. The mountain stares at you from across the bay here in Reykjavík and the thing about Esja, is that because it undulates along the coast, you never see it the same way twice. When I bought my camera with a fixed 28mm lens I knew I would have to learn how to get the most of the lens as it is a relatively short lens compared to how I had been accustomed to shooting over the last few years. For this photograph I wanted to create a gradient with the clear sky and still stretch the dynamic range of the sensor with the sunset. To do that, I set Esja at the bottom of the frame as much as I possibly could, but still left some of the sea in between. The detail at that distance with a 28mm lens is a testament to the camera. I didn’t do any color correction to the photo, but I did add a medium contrast curve preset. For the most part, this comes straight out of the camera.

21

ƒ/1.7 | 1/400 | ISO 400

Icelandic Realism

Shooting a dance festival all weekend and needed to take a break from shooting the standards, so I turned around and saw this guy smoking. The grey of it all, especially on a winter day, speaks to the reality that is Iceland in the middle of December.

20

ƒ/8 | 1/200 | ISO 100

Tree of Life

Dragør, Denmark is a tiny hamlet about 45 minutes bus ride from central Copenhagen. It’s only about 15 minutes drive and being that close and then having such a sleepy life outside the center of an amazing city is really incredible. This house and yard were either suffering hardcore from the summer heat wave, or they were making a cool choice in landscaping. Either way, this tree reminds me of the Tree of Life.

19

ƒ/1.7 | 1/30 | ISO 1600

Unfiled Records

This is a photo of two friends of mine, Allenheimer (L) and Good Moon Deer (R). They are the label heads of Unfiled Records and produce some spectacular records. This was the first shot I took this evening and hadn’t settled into the camera yet. Somehow, the slow shutter produced a super crisp photograph. The Q is pretty amazing in low-light, but I was shocked at how sharp this one was. Usually I find that the grain at 1600 is really nice, without having too much problems in the editing phase. This photo is almost entirely untouched aside from a slight adjustment to the contrast curve. Nothing done to the blacks, which shows how nice the sensor is at that ISO.