With no music to cut the silence, and my travel buddy passed out next to me, I navigated our little white jeep up and down meandering switchback after meandering switchback. Having only made it half way from our hostel to Latrabjarg, we tucked tail and made our way home for fear of running out of gas. Our first night in Iceland taught us a lesson. If the GPS says it will take 4 hours, it will take ten. The roads are rough, but the real reason is that the beautiful scenery begs you to stop after every bend.
I’d struggled to find a groove on this drive, as I so often do when I dust off the photography skills in a new destination. Then, the sun began to reverse its brief dip just below the horizon and something magical happened. A soft light bathed the landscape, bursting through gaps in the cloud to the north. The birds began to awaken and fill the air with song. Approaching a bend, ascending out of another fjord I suddenly found inspiration. The serenity of the moment seemed to be summed up in the single view captured below. Huge cliffs sat peacefully in the distance as a road twisted and turned its way along the edge of the fjords. There wasn’t another car or person in sight. I’d just driven that stretch, and there was a long way to go until I’d reach a bed, but I had to stop, step out in the cold, and mount my camera atop my tripod and try to do the view before me justice.
