Retrospect

In honor of my 599th post, I'm sharing the very first photo from my very first Iceland Eyes post on August 8th, 2004. Much has changed since then in all of our lives, but for me at least Iceland Eyes has remained a constant. Thank you to all of wonderful readers who wouldn't let me quit over the years. I dedicate this post to you!

p.s. Míó the cat is still alive, but has moved into a nice ground-level space under a deck on Baldursgata. He knows where we live now on Njálsgata but, coming from a long line of adventurers, has chosen the more rugged lifestyle conveniently located just behind the best fish restaurant in town ; )

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Lava

Almost completely airborne in Heiðmörk

Our trip out to Heiðmörk and Búrfellsgjá yesterday was very hressandi in the early autumn winds and steel-colored skies. Supplied with bananas and Kókómjólk, Óðinn and I set off for the volcanic crater along a path through the 8,000 year-old lava field just east of Reykjavik. We didn't make it all the way to our end destination but had a super fun time lifting and climbing lava rocks and picking the few remaining blueberries along the path.

We stopped to eat at an overhang that was used for hundreds of years as a shelter, and which had been partially walled up long, long ago with flat stacked lava rocks sealed together over time with centuries-old moss. Banana done, I became obsessed with photographing macro shots of the lava walls in all their minute detail and spent the next twenty minutes or so noticing more and more intricacy in them, and less and less what my son was up to. When I finally gave up on trying to shoot millimeter-sized drops of water just as they were falling, I realized that Óðinn had been rearranging the ancient walls of the shelter to make a separate kitchen area for our new cave home. I stopped him just in time, before any major damage to moss and old lava walls was done. We laughed about it, and made all necessary repairs. It nearly became a true historical landmark fail!

All in all, another amazing outdoors adventure in Iceland : )

Macro-berry

Evening

Night begins to descend in earnest upon the northern latitudes after one more season of bright summer nights. We've recently had some amazing displays of aurora borealis here in Reykjavik due to recent intense sunspot activity and earthbound solar flare coronal mass ejections. It's also been just crispy enough late evenings to help out: it's usually agreed upon that the best auroras happen in colder weather.

We've actually had to (been able to!) delay digging our mittens and hats out of the backs of drawers, though, because of an unusually mild start to September, windless and with bright blue and sunny skies. I have a strange sense that our seasons have shifted somehow since this year's winter was a long, drawn-out and tired affair, spring barely noticeable at all and summer all too often grey and windy. And maybe they have: there are enough unusual natural events, weather and otherwise, happening across the globe these days to buy into the idea that our once-reliable seasonal, temporal and atmospheric indicators are not at all what they used to be. Things are changing, for sure. But until worlds fall apart we'll keep enjoying lovely autumn evening strolls through the streets of our pretty little city.

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(Macro) Inspiration

Every writer knows those times when they feel that it's all been said before, or that someone is currently saying what they are inclined say in a well enough manner, so why be redundant? As far as our lovely Iceland is concerned, there are so many wonderful sources for current events and entertainment online (my facebook news feed alone is full-to-brim with amazing talent!) that it seems right to just let them do the talking in words and in pictures.

And after seven years and 596 posts, I sometimes wonder what compels me to keep on with this little hobby, which has become much more complex a package now that the social media tide has swept into our lives. I'm told by "experts" that to make anything of this site I'm to invite visitors to like/follow me in all sorts of different ways (see left, though I balked at creating an email list to spam you even more cleverly with, my dears.) And now the invisible pressure to do what the rest of the active universe is doing, i.e. tweeting, posting, emailing, G+-ing, and blogging has boggled this poor soul's mind.

I like to assume that you are all intelligent creatures, and that for you, like me, less is more. A few photos per post, succinct text with relevant links (though sometimes obscure if a site is really worth linking to) and a clean, uncluttered template is what I offer because it's what I look for in other websites. I've always tried to steer clear of repeating local/national news because I read most of it myself in an RSS reader or just Google 'Iceland news,' which I assume you all can/will do yourselves. Furthermore, I get that most of you won't even read this far because we live in the age of the Image. A pretty macro picture of 1cm long seashells on an Icelandic beach may make you pause for an appreciative instant before moving on to the next visual of our glorious existence here on post-millennial Earth, but you may not absorb more. I get that. It's what I often do.

So this writer is a pocket photographer with an uncanny, irrepressible urge to share with all of you. But maybe, because I'm from the pre-silicon solid-state-and-steel era, I become confounded by the myriad of mediums I am to use to communicate my simple photos and words.

Right now I am obsessed with macro shots of the delicate flora and fauna we pass by in our everyday lives, and I'm not sure that I would want to flood you with the incredibly small in every post. I do want to let you all know, though, that I have a few albums of life here in Reykjavik available for viewing via Picasa* and/or Google+, and that my soul is crafting slowly and with care my novel, which is a love letter to this island. I'll be sharing bits and vignettes in the near future. In addition, I will be posting to our facebook page though maybe sporadically for now.

 Thank you all for your patience and for your encouragement. It means a lot. Much love and grace to you all ~.~

*Here are three albums you might enjoy (please view them enlarged, starting with the first one : ) Secret Reykjavik, The Secret Life of Iceland, Ridiculously Beautiful Flowers, Iceland Poppy 

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Color

On a simple evening stroll through our Skuggahverfi this amazing collaboration of colors made my day. I've been on a little late summer hiatus, but will continue bringing you more scenes from our pretty little city as we stretch into autumn. This, by the way, is my 596th post! Hard for me to believe...

Peace

Turn off the news, turn away from the papers, step outside. Find a bloom and let it bring you peace.

(This photo is part of an album entitled Ridiculously Beautiful Flowers Growing Between Gravel and Corrugated Iron in a Driveway in Reykjavik, which you can view here.)

Pride

Repost from 2008: Happy Gay Day to all! Here's Rósa and her band Sometime having a glittering blast on wheels during today's Gay Pride parade. Tonight the town belongs to the Rainbow and anyone and everyone who's ready to party on til dawn...

In honor of our annual Gay Pride festival I've changed the colors of our title to reflect this weekend's festivities : ) We'll be out and about again this year, enjoying the rainbow colors and overall happy vibes that fill Reykjavik during this weekend's celebrations. The parade route has been changed this year because Laugavegur just can't handle the ten of thousands who gather to take part anymore. A happy problem! Hopefully we'll get another colorful photo from today's festivities to share with you all. For now, listen to the Gay Pride song for 2011, by Icelandic diva Hera Björk.

Side note: Takk innilega for all your support! We've gone over the six-digit mark for views, and it looks like about half are return visitors, half new. View count numbers don't take into account reader/rss traffic, so we can be sure that Iceland Eyes has many more visitors than those that show. Keep coming back, and be sure to let me know if you have a photo, story or video of Iceland that you'd like to share with the world (you can contact me at icelandeyes@gmail.com : ) Hope you all have a Wonderful weekend...be sure to hug the ones you're with!

Kick

It's been a rainy Verslunarmannahelgi all around the country but that didn't stop us from enjoying a casual game of Soccer Pool at Reykjavik's Faktory pub/club.

If it's real pool you want Bar 46 is the best place downtown to shoot. It's warm and clean and doubles as an art gallery, giving your game that little added touch of culture.

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Cozy

A charming weekend tableau at Tíu Dropar café : )

Midnight

Reposted from July 2008: An odd and deep fog is settling over Reykjavik this evening, muffling sounds and blocking the lovely midnight sunset from sight. That reminds me of something my Amma Ásta once said to me, "I don't understand it when people say the sun has finally come out; the sun is always there. It's the clouds that come and go."

So the sun is glowing warm and bright behind the evening's fog, as it was around midnight last week when I spotted this group of teenage visitors walking the path along the bay, enjoying the last rays of the day.

No fog for us these days except possibly regarding, once again, the future of Iceland on the international front. If you haven't already, go check out our facebook page for some idea of a few of the issues now on the table for our little mighty island.

Flight

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Árni Grétar

On a weekend of loss and chaos a Kría, or Arctic Tern, soaring through the heavens seems a thing of purity and grace. This tiny bird may fly, in it's 30 year life span, nearly 1.5 million miles, an example of constancy that seems lacking in our mortal lives. As our world grow more complex we do right to look to the skies and marvel at the beautiful wonders that have for millennia inspired us to dream of flight. Ethereal, impossible, perfect, a bird symbolizes what we can be when we allow ourselves to believe that there is more to this existence than our earth-bound hurts and trials. Peace to the souls lost during these maddening times, and may their spirits fly high for us all.

This shot, taken near Árni Grétar's hometown of Tálknafjörður is an essay in simplicity, and as evocative as the gorgeous ambient music he composes as Futuregrapher. Co-founder of Möller Records, he plays an integral part in advancing the ambient and electronic movement here in Iceland and abroad. Breathe deep, press play, and let his music help your own soul take flight.

One love

For more photos by Árni Grétar, search and follow "Futuregrapher" with the Instagram app.

Metal

As in any city in the world, big or small, some of us metro types forget that there's views worth discovering in those drive-through-on-the-way-to-the-airport suburbs surrounding our glamorous urban lifestyles. Though this might cause me hassle, I'm going to admit that Kópavogur is that kind of place for me, though they do have a new and really cool swimming pool/gym and will soon have a full-blown amusement park in the Smáralind Mall (here you can read Alda's opinion on it's very dubious arial footprint) though I'm having a hard time finding links to back that fact up.

For now, we'll let this picture do, of a metal shop with a very creative owner in the old west bank industrial/harbor area, right across the waters from our lovely beach at Nauthólsvík.

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Dedicated

Note: technical difficulties! Some of our photos are dropping out, which makes me sad (I'll not point fingers, but it might be a Picasa issue...) I'm fixing it as we speak.
We'll leave our armchair-architectural opinions at the door and just note that many of you who have taken the trip to Geysir and Gullfoss (live webcam!) via Laugarvatn have passed by this church at Úthlíð. It was consecrated in 2006 in memory of Ágústa Ólafsdóttir by her husband Björn Sigurðsson and as such has charming sentimental value that may make up for its (for me) shockingly out of place appearance in the heart of Iceland's historical Saga territory.

I jumped out of our car to take a picture while Óðinn, being an inquisitive five year old, decided, against my strict council, to see if he could take a run around the interior (literally.) Before I knew it I had followed him in and was actually comforted by how warm and comfortable the church is, with a large portrait of Ágústa on the south wall and a colorful modern tableau of Mary, Baby Jesus and a content-looking cow above the altar (painted by the architect, Gísli Sigurðsson, former journalist and brother of Björn) all framed with that natural wood so common in summer houses around the countryside. Before my little klifurmús could climb the final ladder up the bell tower, I was able to snap a few more pictures, have a short moment of silence, and gather him back out into the car. I'm glad he dared to try the door and entreat me to join him inside. Now I have much more respect for a building I would have simply written off as a roadside oddity otherwise.

Macro

Once again, the secret world of our often very barren island shows through in macro. Here, an incredibly well-designed creature, only a centimeter in size, rests on a tiny bloom. This close to the arctic, far from the giant sequoias of California and the lush tropical flora of more southerly volcanic islands (which, beneath their foliage are surprisingly similar to ours) it's small things that hint at Nature's tenacity. Sit, while here, and let your eyes begin to decipher the seemingly endless expanses of low growth that just greens the hillsides of Iceland. You'll soon discover that, almost fractally, what you see is a microcosm of diversity, though sometimes mere millimeters in size.

Moors

It seems fair to warn you, dear reader, friend of Iceland, and/or potential visitor that on your travels out to the countryside you will be seeing quite a bit of this: stark moors, plus barren arctic deserts capped by grey skies. And it may very well be windy to boot. A huge swath of land between Fljótsdalshérað in the east and Akureryi in the north is, frankly, discouraging and mind-numbing tundra-scape. Some people love it, and some pretend to, but I'm pretty sure the majority of us find ourselves wondering how long we'd survive if our cars died and no one ever passed by that way again (sometimes you can go a good fifteen, twenty minutes without seeing another car, even in high traffic summer.) 

So be warned: always let your hotel/guesthouse/the internet in general (tweets! fb!) know where you're going and when while you are traveling the countryside here, bring some good happy tunes with you (an iPod jack or CDs for your rental car is a must: there's no-to-poor radio reception for great stretches of the main highway!) and plenty of chocolate, snacks and water. Anything to keep you alert, awake and  in a good traveling mood. The sameness of the landscape can mesmerize and you want to be sure to stay focused and on the road! Your destination is most probably an amazing natural wonder, well worth journeying to. Just be prepared for lots of "nothing" in between.

Or you can just do like Jon Bon Jovi * just did yesterday, and rent a helicopter to take you about ; ) 

*This link shows you just how "imperfect" google Translate still is with Icelandic. We're working on it!

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Dogs

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Christian Henkel

Yes, you can go on a dogsledding adventure here in Iceland! On a glacier in the summer time! I haven't done it myself, but I have been to the top of Langjökull glacier on a snowmobile and what you get from there are stunning views out over southwest Iceland, into the highlands interior and out to the Atlantic beyond. The sledding companies also offer dog trolley excursions to places like Surtshellir, which is a fantastic and cave/lava tube that has been used and written about and visited since the first settlement era in the 9th century. You can still see remnants of very old encampments up on the ledges lining the tube, as well as little ice elves that populate the cave floor. Here's a sweet song by our internationally acclaimed sigur rós from the stunningly beautiful documentary Heima played on a marimba made out of slate/scree in Surtshellir.   

Christian, a resident of Berlin, has been sharing his photos of Iceland on our facebook page wall (which you are all welcome, and encouraged to do : ) and so I asked if I could use one them. It was difficult choosing one from among his many excellent shots but this one seemed most in tune with the Iceland Eyes vibe.  

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Perspective

A little bit of comic relief: I looked out my living room window this morning and this is what I saw. Momentarily boggling, for sure ~.^

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Done

Some things take time to finish, like the new building at corner of Lækjargata and Austurstræti (right there on this amazing interactive map of our pretty city.) It replicates the one that burned down in 2007, which was one of the oldest in our city. (From the picture in the last link you can see that the new building was raised up a whole level, which actually suites the sightline just fine.) We're all happy to see this corner, which anyone who has visited Reykjavík will have passed by at least once, looking fine and shiny again.

In my response to a reader's comment in the last post, I put myself in the awkward position of having to back my words up with action and find something slightly unique relating to Iceland to present to visitors. And here it is: just about as random and bizarre a connection as you could imagine between Iceland and California. Thanks to a local woman, another FBI manhunt is done.

On an artistic note, please treat yourself to some true beauty by watching part 1 of the latest Weird Girls Project video, this time set to the evocative Love the Earth score by Imogen Heap. Producer, Concept Artist and Artistic Director Kitty Von-Sometime has once again created a work of art (be sure to view it full screen and then watch more of her work offered in the Vimeo menu, with soundtracks by some of Iceland's best musicians.)

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Nesstofa

Seltjarnarnes is one of my favorite spots to go for an easy seaside stroll (or midnight golf) as well as for an almost guaranteed great photo or two. This shot, taken at midnight on a lovely June evening, is of Nesstofa, a 1760's fusion of Danish architectural expertise and Icelandic esthetics. It currently houses the Medical History Museum of Iceland and has recently been the focus of an archeological investigation.

For anyone coming here I highly recommend you pick up a copy of the very popular 25 Beautiful Walks of the Greater Reykjavik Area, which I had the pleasure to translate into English, and which includes a wonderful and detailed description of the nature and history of this area (and the website selling it online, nammi.is, is pretty cool itself, though of course you can also find it in all bookstores here on the island.)

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History

GUEST PHOTOGRAPHER: Matthew Marteinsson

Matthew, who hails from Vancouver, was the first winner of our Facebook Win a Print from Iceland Eyes contest (he chose this image, Dreams, and says he's quite happy with his prize.) When he sent me his mailing info I couldn't help but notice that his last name was definitely Icelandic, so I asked him about it. Turns out, he's got connections to our island. He replied:

Yes my family traces back to Iceland. My great-grand father moved to Canada around the turn of the century. As far as I know they came from northern Iceland and he was a Lutheran minister. Of course when they came to Canada they moved to Gimli ["the heart of New Iceland" in Canada] where my grand father was born. I've been to Iceland twice so far. Both times during [music festival Iceland] Airwaves. I still want to come during the summer to try and find the farm the family came from. My dad has a painting of the farm which has the name of the area on it.

He shared some of his pictures from his last visit here with me and I invited him to be a guest photographer. When we'd chosen a photo he wrote:

I found what I had figured out from the painting I grew up with. It had the mountain from this site on it and had Svartárkot and Bardardalur written on it. I hope to come back some time and get up to there.

[This shot] was from the first day of my second trip to Iceland during Airwaves. With my great-grandfather coming from Iceland I've always had a calling to visit. Like it was in my blood. Each time I've been I try to get as off the beaten path as I can. I always want to find the little hidden spots that will really stay with me. This old boat seemed like it must have some wonderful tales to tell.

Thank you Matthew for sharing a bit of your history with us. It's a pleasure to meet another long-lost cousin ; )

Just so you know, our Facebook and Twitter pages are chock full of many more cool and interesting links that don't make it to the blog. So do drop by, and keep your eyes open for our contests where you can win prints of your favorite shots and maybe even a book or two!

Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )