Two years ago I started a new segment on my blog for photographers with whom I have travelled before in order to provide an outlet for them to share some of their own writing and photography amongst a wider audience. It has been a while since the last post but I wanted to share some thoughts and photographs from Kevin Horsefield who recently accompanied me on my Iceland Frozen North 2016 Workshop. I have had the pleasure of travelling and photographing with Kevin now in Iceland on several occasions as well as Namibia, Antarctica and South Georgia. Enjoy his thoughts and photographs from our most recent Iceland trip.
Iceland the Frozen North 2016 – Kevin Horsefield
I ventured to Iceland in late Winter of 2016 with Joshua Holko and Daniel Bergmann. As a veteran of their workshops, I know that we will be in the best possible location at the right time to maximize our photography. Daniel’s ability to read the light and Iceland’s fickle weather patterns are unparalleled. Once at a location, Joshua can take over and helps his clients fine tune their compositions if necessary.
We seemed to be constantly dodging storms on this trip and dealing with rather flat light. My solution was to shoot into the sun to bring a bit of drama to the scene. With the sun being somewhat low on the horizon even at mid-day in Iceland, this technique can work well in these conditions.
I also employ this strategy when I’m working with thermal areas, such as Hverir.
Backlighting also works well at Iceland’s famous black sand beach with the sun illuminating its translucent icebergs.
Backlighting also works well at Iceland’s famous black sand beach with the sun illuminating its translucent icebergs.Some images work best with a conversion to black and white. The color at sunset was so muted on this evening that I decided to strip it all away to emphasize this composition. I also added a slight blue tone to this image to convey the feeling of winter in Iceland.
More of Kevin’s Photography can be found at http://kevinhorsefieldphotography.com
Daniel Bergmann and I will be running our annual winter trip again in 2017 and bookings are now open. Just drop me an email if you would like to join us.
We ended up loosing the better part of our last full day to a large winter storm that swept down from the Arctic that closed many of the mountain passes. The turn in weather necessitated a hasty retreat from the north a day earlier than we had originally planned. The weather was dramatic, but problematic for photography on occasion. The high winds did give us some pretty dramatic opportunities on the peninsula near Keflavik where we spent our last two nights.
Day one: In the morning around 10 o’clock I was collected from the hotel, the transportation is a Mercedes medium vehicle with capacity of total 14 passengers, we started from Reykjavik drove to the east in the southern coast, arrived a port called “Vik”, we shot the famous the three rocks and the frozen beach. After lunch we went to the other side of the beach in the morning, to shoot the sunset and huge waves under the cliff, the sun sometimes showed its face through the clouds, which a treacherous mood aroused among clouds.
(Editors Note: We also had a good deal of fun with photographing a frozen iceman in the caves).
Day three: we came again to the lagoon but the weather again not stable with small rain, we went to the sea shore close to the lagoon and had some shoots of the wave, by a long exposure about 1-4 seconds of shutter speed, the wave slapped the icebergs turned beautify milky sheets prints on the sea shore. We planned to see the northern lights in the evening, but because of the heavy clouds there was a small aurora activities around mid night, so went back late with nothing.
Day four: we started late this morning because of the late came back last evening, today we arrived the “Hvannadalshnukun” national park of volcano, the sun coming out now and then, we had shoots of the blue glacier rocks and closing shoot of the texture by telescope lens, because the bad weather we stayed in the hotel to manage our photos for the rest of the day.
Day seven: Today we started at 10:00 in the morning heading for the “Godafoss” waterfall, which is the most famous waterfall in Iceland, the name of the waterfall is according to the history, that the predecessor of the Icelander decided to have the religion of Christ, and threw the symbol of many other gods to the waterfall. The waterfall are composed by 3 sections, you could already feel its magnificent from far, when approaching close, we felt a huge air stream with water against, the water rumbling down from a height of 12 meters cliff, we should wipe the lens from time to time to have a clear image, the sun was shining occasionally provided a slice of gold light in the waterfall, I tried some fish-eye shoots gave a different prospect, the selection of the foreground should be a key in this landscape shooting. After lunch on the way back we took some images of the snow landscape with bushes, the dark color of the bush against the snow providing high contrast can be good for B&W photos, we met by chance a group of horses, a white one was curious of our presence and came approaching as our model. After dinner the sky getting clear, around 9:00 we found the aurora activities along the lakeside from dimming and getting brighter and brighter, a duration of about 3 hours till midnight, I set the exposure as f/2.8, ISO 800-1600(most of the time), shutter was from 5 to 10 seconds, but to adjust according to the brightness of the aurora is needed. 
Day eight: Today after breakfast we drove back to the Reykjavik peninsular, the weather forecasting warned a dangerous strong wind were presented, it was nearly not possible for a photography activities.
This expedition departed from Punta Arenas in South America. Punta Arenas has quickly become my preferred departure point for expeditions to Antarctica. The Chileans just seem to be much better organised with their airport timing than the Argentinians and everything seems to run like a well oiled machine. Although Chile also charges a reciprocity fee on entry for Australians (and Americans) it can at least be paid on arrival without having to pre-purchase.
As we sailed through the passage the light just continued to get better and better, reaching its peak in colour around the narrowest point in the channel. I have been fortunate to venture through the Lemaire channel on many occasions now and this was without doubt the very best light I have yet experienced in this remarkable location. The light actually proved quite challenging in post production as the color in the sky was so intense and the reflected light contained such a strong color caste from the sky that white balance selection was somewhat difficult. In the end the above photograph taken from the front bow of the ship with the cameras auto white balance best matched my recollection of the morning.
We also visited the surreal Deception Island (one of my personal favourite places in Antarctica for photography). Conditions were misty, with low cloud and strong winds on our arrival, which provided a chance to capture some evocative moody images. Deception Island never fails to disappoint with its myriad of rusty whalers remnants that make for interesting subject matter. 
Over the course of the expedition we encountered over 100 whales including Humpbacks. Orcas, Fin whales, Hour Glass Dolphins, Peale’s Dolphins and Minke Whales. We also saw and photographed numerous Albatross including Black-browed, Grey Headed, Sooty, Wandering and Light Mantled as well as numerous other Antarctic bird species.
Our return drake crossing proved a little bumpier than our first crossing, but on the whole was relatively mild.
I will be leading a new Antarctica expedition in 2017 that I am code naming ‘Iceberg Hunter’, that is dedicated to photographers and the photography of icebergs and antarctic landscapes. This expedition will depart earlier than all previous trips (in late October) in order to provide us with the best chance to find and photograph icebergs of all sizes and shapes (including giant tabulars) in good light. If you would like to get the jump on this expedition you can register your interest now (no obligation at this point) by dropping me an email at 
The book is divided up into the seperate competition categories. The layout is logical and the photographs have been nicely matched on facing pages. My review of this book is not based on the inclusion of three of my photographs and I would feel the same way about this book regardless of their inclusion or exclusion.
www.WILDNATUREPHOTOTRAVEL.com 