ICELAND 2009
Iceland - when I used to hear the name, I would picture a small place somewhere in the cold Atlantic, with fierce Nordic settlers trying to stay alive in rugged country made up of volcanoes and ice sheets.
And that is exactly what it is. But you can also throw in Nordic folklore fielded with wild monsters, vast, windy deserts, beautiful seascapes, grassy hills and low forests, Irish women with the Nordic and Celtic settlers, wonderful people who still speak the original language, Icelandic, a beautiful city filled with the European jet setters partying in style, fantastic food including tons of small lobster, freezing mornings on the ocean following seagulls to fantastic whales, and watching little puffins skip across the tops of waves telling themselves that they really can fly (kind of).
And so much more...
Hardware
- Nikon D70 DSLR camera
- Nikkor AF-S DX 18-70mm ƒ3.5-4.5G Iens
- iOlympus u1030SW digital camera
Software
- Apple Photos v8.0
- Pixelmator Pro v3.3.7
- Topaz Sharpen AI v4.1.0
- Topaz DeNoise AI v3.7.2
- Topaz Gigapixel AI v6.3.3
VIEWING HELP
To close this window, click the X in the upper right hand corner. Or click anywhere outside of this window's area.
Photos from each day are shown in thumbnail (small) form. Panoramas are either wide or tall images, while normal photos are small rectangles. All photos shown in the PHOTO SHOWCASE section can be enlarged for better viewing. Photos will enlarge to fit your browser window width. Therefore, to view them at larger sizes simply make your browser window wider.
If there is any issue or the need to inquire/comment about an image, please refer to the Image ID label (see below) of the specific image along with the trip name found at the top of the browser window.
Video Clips
Depending on the browser, some of the controls may not always be supported.
Most videos will start playing automatically. Sound is automatically off even if included with a video. See D, E below for sound control.
A few small videos are set to loop endlessly, while most just play to the end.
- A: To start or stop a video, click in this area (even if the symbol is not visible)
- B: If a browser shows this symbol, clicking on it will restart the video from the beginning
- C: Progress bar - will display total video time on the right.
- D, E: This seems to have the most variants between browsers. If the video description says 'w/ sound’, you can adjust the volume with this control
If neither is visible, move the cursor to the E area and either E and/or D will be visible
If E is visible but not D, click on E
Once D is visible, slide the bar up or down to adjust the volumn
Panoramas
Clicking anywhere on a panorama thumbnail will cause the image to expand to fill the browser width. Clicking again anywhere in the browser window or scrolling the browser window will cause the expanded image to shrink back to its smaller thumbnail size.
The Image ID and description is found just below the thumbnail image on the left side.
Individual Photographs
If you click on any photo thumbnail, it will open a larger viewer which can be used to walk through all of the standard photos on the page. Once open, to go forward click on the > on the right side of the enlarged image. To scan backwards, click on the < on the left side. To close the larger images either click on the X in the upper right hand corner of the browser window or anywhere outside of the enlarged image.
The Image ID label can be found by hovering a cursor over the thumbnail image (may not be available on some tablets/phones) or, once enlarged, from the lower left hand side just under the image.
Additionally, in the same area as the Image ID (or the upper left corner for newer/updated sites) a count showing the current image number versus the total number of images available for viewing.
For newer or updated sites (look for the orange checkbox in the header of a sites main page), additional buttons have been added when viewing a full size image. From left to right, the buttons are:
- Email: will open an email with information and a link to the current image
- WhatsApp: if WhatsApp is on your system, will open a browser window to open WhatsApp and create a message with information and a link to the current image
- FaceBook: Will open a browser window to open Facebook and create a message with information and a link to the current image
- full screen: will take over the entire display versus just the browser in most systems; ESC returns to the brower only mode
- magnify: enlarges the image within the browser or full screen; if the image is larger than can be displayed it can be scrolled
- exit: will close the large image viewer returning to the thumbnails
Sharing
Links:
JOIN ME ON MY 2009 TRIP TO THE SOUTH WESTERN SECTION OF ICELAND
Once again, I traveled to an exciting place with a small group of fellow adventure travel people. Iceland was the destination, with all of its legends and mystery. Please come along as you follow me through this wonderful trip, compliments of my need to photograph everything.
During this trip, we only covered one small section of Iceland, as you can see by the above map. But it included a tremendous variety of activities, landscapes, and experiences.
We visited waterfalls, grottos, life-size models of longhouses, a settler's Viking house, a volcanic crater with a lake, geysers, hot spring-fed rivers, ruins of fishing stations, an old church by the ocean, and the site of the first ever parliament.
We ate tubs full of mini-lobsters, hiked through ice-cold springs fed by glaciers, wandered below volcanoes, kayaked on the open sea, bathed in a stream that felt like bath water (further up, we would have been steamed alive), soaked in city-supported hot pots (hot tubs fed by natural hot springs), walked literally between two continental shelves, had white mud facials in a famous hot spring, and biked through a rift valley across a beautiful peninsula.
We experienced rough and beautiful lava flows, walked on lichen that was softer than any carpet ever made and which covered everything as far as we could see, we saw water that was both ice-cold from the glaciers and boiling up from the ground, we watched whales surfacing amid huge flocks of seagulls, and we watched tiny little puffins try to fly just above the waves.
Keep in mind, this was all in just one week in just one corner of Iceland. Still plenty to see and do on future trips visiting giant ice sheets, active volcanoes coming up from underneath glacial fields, visiting the mountain that Jules Verne wrote about in "Journey to the Center of the Earth", and exploring all kinds of fiords, gravel deserts, and wild landscapes.
I almost forgot, we also experienced one of the coolest night spots for Europe - Reykjavik. There will be plenty of opportunities to experience this on future trips too.
I hope that you enjoy my sharing of just this small part of the Icelandic adventure!
