Ash

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GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Ben Hall

Ben writes: There is nothing worse than building your hopes up on a planned event so that it's almost impossible to stop blinking with excitement, only to have your plans shattered by a most untimely eruption of a 'nearby' volcano. Mother Nature obviously does not care about my plans to go back home to Scotland for my favourite festival... So when I heard that she had blasted some of her angry dust high into the air and forced Keflavik airport to close, it made sense to try driving as close as possible to Grimsvötn to give it the proverbial 'finger'. Naturally, ironically, the volcano won that challenge as well, but we did get as far as Vik, and before beginning the trip back to Reykjavik we took in the beauty of Reynisfjara beach. To see the black sand and the amazing rock formations with the thick ash cloud of the volcano blocking out the sun was something I will not forget in a hurry... Which is pretty much what I think of Iceland on a whole. Totally unforgettable.


When not dashing out to enjoy the follies of nature and capture gorgeous photos in the process, Ben (who also created a brilliant electro track for our volcano: play loud ; ) works as a Quality Assurance Tester at Iceland's innovative and award-winning CCP Games.


(Here's a very cool video of our eruption with music by sigur rós : )