ƒ//5.0 | 1/1600 | ISO400
Hjálmar
Fun with framing.
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ƒ/5.6 | 1/1600 | ISO400
Out on a photo walk and encountering scenes that you don’t really expect in the middle of downtown Reykjavík. I have my flash permanently attached these days, for the flash fill it creates and the highlights it can bring to shadows during the day.
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ƒ/16.0 | 1/125. | ISO100
Langisandur
Been on a great run of being outside lately, taking a Saturday to go to the beach really felt nice. The reflection on the wet sand really connected this photograph to the moment.
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ƒ/2.8 | 1/640 | ISO100
Personal Spaces
Something so funny about the best light in the house being in the shower/bathroom.
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ƒ/5.6 | 1/320 | ISO100
Oops
Another attempt at narrative photography, or deliberate photography. This really tells the story of a bad day for someone and their poor car. I like to imagine the scenario that led to this was something really elaborate as if it were straight out of a Coen Brothers movie.
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ƒ/4 | 1/2000 | ISO400
Sketches
This day was a fun one when we had some horses in the garden at Ásmundarsalur and people were invited to come and sketch using the horses as the models. I made use of the balcony above and shot this overhead of a few people relaxing while enjoying this gorgeous day.
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ƒ/4.0 | 1/800 | ISO400
The Slave Cliffs
The blue of the Atlantic Ocean here was remarkable. Walking here from the parking area really betrays the scenes you’re about to encounter when you reach this part of Sørvágur in the Faroe Islands. Any guess as to why they call this the Slave Cliffs?
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ƒ/5.6 | 1/500 | ISO100
José
Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
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ƒ/1.7 | 1/500 | ISO400
Summer
Trying to be more narrative in the photographs I take. I’m calling the folder I save these in, “Deliberate Photographs.” I want to give the viewer a sense of intention and understanding of the moment the photograph was taken in and in the end, hopefully a story.
46
ƒ/8.0 | 1/400 | ISO400
Greenhouse
One of the wonders of Grímsnes, Iceland is the greenhouse restaurant called Fríðheimar. I’ve been conceptualising a science fiction movie that would shoot in Iceland and use spaces like this to substitute for spaceships. When you are in this place you feel like you are in the future, cultivating food to sustain a colony of people who live in a remote part of the universe.
45
ƒ/6.3 | 1/60 | ISO160
Summer Nights
The idea that every single aspect of a photo needs to be in the perfect exposure range is something that is relatively new on the timeline of photography. I haven’t totally jumped on board with it as I feel like the photos always look unnatural. I don’t think I’d be able to get this photo on film without a lot of heavy editing in the darkroom, burning & dodging the top and bottom a good amount. Having a camera with the dynamic range of the Q really makes life easier when shooting a photograph such as this one.
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ƒ/4.9 | 1/60 | ISO800
44 | Nov. 4th, 2008
Why not a throwback to a time when things were looking totally different for the world? I remember this day so well: I was working the floor at the Ralph Lauren Rugby store in Chicago constantly checking the computer for updates as to how the election was unfolding. I had recently returned from spending the summer in East Hampton, New York watching the richest community I’d ever lived in look on in horror as their August vacations were being cancelled left and right as the banks on Wall Street were collapsing in an epic worldwide economic meltdown.
You might not remember, but Obama spent the first 10 months of 2008 campaigning on changing the world based on one word: Hope. He represented the next sea change that my generation was desperately clamouring for. We had been raised in the 1990s with so much wealth dripping around us, it was a huge shock that our educations were being sold at prices that were going to saddle us with debt for the same amount of time a mortgage would by the same people that our parents told us to vote for who happened to love sending our peers off to die in wars that were sold on lies.
Obama was a new thing. A chance for the USA to go forward into this economic crisis and re-write how we would rule the world as the greatest country on earth. Obama declared, “This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.”
Looking back we know it took only 3 years for Obama to forget he included in his speech was this passage: “Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.” Because it only took 3 year for the Millennial segment of Obama’s movement to move on from him and become Occupy Wall Street. Had Obama listened to this movement, where would we be now?
But I digress, I was working on the sales floor of Rugby, checking updates and simultaneously trying to get my ticket to be at this historic event. After countless disappointing refreshes of the site, I checked in with my mom and found that one of her co-workers had gotten a ticket that wouldn’t be used and I jumped at the chance to meet her downtown and go see Obama give his first speech as President-elect. The energy of this moment was unparalleled as a quarter of a million people filed into Grant Park to catch a glimpse of the man that meant so much to the world at that time. What a moment it was.
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ƒ/3.2 | 1/1000 | ISO100
Kastrup
Walking through an airport as big as Kastrup in the throes of a pandemic is otherworldly. These benches caught my eye as a place that normally would offer refuge for those waiting for their loved ones to make it through immigration or just a nice spot to relax in between long layovers. During my own layover, I saw under 100 people over the course of 6 hours. A total mind trip.
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ƒ/10.0 | 1/125 | ISO 100
Been a while, as it always is when things get busy. Now that things are slow, I may as well post some photos and tell the story a bit more. I was recently on a production in the Faroe Islands, which as you can see is a special place on this planet. Yes, that is a waterfall ending in the Atlantic Ocean. Pretty simple landscape photo, open the aperture, lower the ISO and try to balance the light for the highest highlights and dark lowlights. My favourite part is the colour of the ocean, which was as beautiful a colour of the ocean as you’ll ever see.
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ƒ/1.7 | 1/200 | ISO 800
Bleikt Ský
I got a call from some friends making a music video and got the chance to swing by and document the set-building process and shoot the breeze while the night wore on. Quite obviously, from the photograph, the concept was pink everything which stems from the song’s title, Bleikt Ský (Pink Clouds). They absolutely knocked it out of the park and I can’t wait to see the final result.
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ƒ/16 | 1/500 | ISO 1600
The view from work on a snowy day. Leica SF40 Flash attached to grab those big snowflakes.
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ƒ/4.5 | 1/100 | ISO 400
Self-Portrait 21.2.20
This is me. This is the face of someone hurting. I’m not feeling my best right now. Things get into my sphere and they bring me down. The world is facing so much at the moment and somehow I can’t separate it from me. I feel like people are scared, or they are dumb, or they don’t know how to do anything but act corrupt. And to top it off, there is a virus that threatens to infect and kill quite a large number of people.
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ƒ/16 | 1/100 | ISO 100
Summer Road Trip
It’s dark here in Iceland now, so I am looking for any light that I can. Thinking back to this mid-summer camping and road trip that Kara, Maggie, and I went on. The Volcano in the distance here is called Helka. The clouds on this day were just epic. Casting massive shadows over the land intermittently as we drove along the glacial runoff river heading towards the sea.
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ƒ/16 | 1/60 | ISO 100
The Adriatic Sea
With hot summer days comes the need to cool down and never have I felt as cooled after dip in this sea. The salt content is quite high, so you end up being able to float on the surface without any reason to to move at all. The level of relaxation in that is on another level. Add to it some wine and a toke of a joint and you are living your best life.
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ƒ/16 | 1/400 | ISO 400
Wicklow Mountains, Ireland
When I was composing this photograph I was frustrated that Kira and Pat had leapt into the foreground of the space and it was not until I was able to sit down and edit that I realized they added a certain dynamic to the shot that otherwise was missing in my other frames of the moment. Their excitement to see the sight puts some perspective on the grandeur of the mountains here in this exceptionally beautiful land. If not for their exuberance, the shot would not have come out how it did, and thus, they can be credited as saving the shot.