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This morning we rose at 2am from our accomodation in the Highlands and headed into an area known as Veidivotn for sunrise; which is just northeast of Landmannalauger (where we will be shooting sunset around 11pm this evening). Veidivotn like much of Iceland is an alien landscape consisting of mountains of black tephra and a large number of crater lakes from a massive volcanic eruption. Veins of luminous green moss spread out across the black volcanic tephra sands in a surreal off-world landscape that is more akin to the planet LV-426 from Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ than anything you would expect to find on Earth. The veins of iridescent green moss glow in the soft morning light against the black tephra sands. Deep blue lakes lie in the volcanic basins creating a totally surreal other worldly landscape that is simply wonderful for photography.

This photograph was taken from the rim of one of the many crater lakes with both the LEE 10-Stop ‘Big Stopper’ Neutral Density filter stacked with a LEE 3-Stop Hard ND Filter to hold back the sky. The exposure time of four minutes has allowed the clouds to streak across the sky adding drama to the image. This photograph for me captures he essence of Veidivotn .

Tonight we are headed into Landmannalauger where there are multi-coloured volcanic mountains, sulphurous vents and small lakes. I have seen some very good photography from this area and look forward to seeing it for myself.

We are just about to have some dinner [but I wanted to squeeze in a blog update with our plans for the next day or so] and grab a few hours shut eye before we head off at 3am to Godafoss – “waterfall of the Gods” for a sunrise photography session. I have seen many photographs of Godafoss and am very much looking forward to making my own images from this location – Hopefully the light will be very good; at the moment it’s 6pm in the evening and quite overcast. The forecast is quite good – so we shall soon see.

Spent an hour and a half this afternoon relaxing in the hot aquamarine mineral sulphur pools at Myvatn which was great for recharging my depleted batteries. In combination with this local Iceland energy drink called ‘Magic’ [sort of like a Red Bull – but much better] I feel almost refreshed and ready to keep up the long, long waking hours. I have long since lost track of days and my sense of time is really screwed up.

After our session at 3am at Godafoss we are taking the six hour off road ‘bone-jarring’ drive across the Sprengisandur route to reach Hrauneyjar. On the way we’ll probably make stops by Aldeyjarfoss waterfall and in Nyjidalur. In the evening we’ll visit the Veidivotn area, a cluster of crater lakes about 30 minutes from Hrauneyjar. We are going to spend a couple of days in this area; including a trip up to Landmannalaugar; where according to the guide book there are multi-coloured mountains, hot springs, lava flows and clear blue lakes.

Yesterday we headed into  Askja – which is a huge volcano in a remote part of the the North-east of Iceland. Askja is an utterly desolate region of Iceland. Black lava fields extend more than 100 kms from the caldera creating a very desolate surreal landscape [Think ‘Mordor’ from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – but on steroids]. The drive in through the lava fields is anything but comfortable; taking around two and a half hours of bone jarring rough road. The majority of Iceland’s unpaved roads are anything but friendly to cars. According to the guide book the caldera of the Askja volcano encompasses an area of more than 50 square kilometres. The explosion that caused the immense crater occured relatively recently in 1875 when two cubic kilometres of tephra was ejected from the volcano – bits of it landing as far away as Continental Europe. The size and scale of the landscape is overwhelming; it must have been one hell of a bang when Askja exploded.

After the initial eruption a magma chamber collapsed and formed an 11km square km hole, 300m below the rim of the original explosion crater. This new depression has now filled with water and is a sapphire blue in colour and is known as Oskjuvatn – the second deepest in Iceland. The water is geothermally heated and the same temperature as a warm bath. Askja has erupted as recently as 1961 and there are active sulphur vents dotted around the crater.

We spent several hours photographing in overcast sunset light around the caldera before a midnight supper in the black lava fields [Daniel, that berry yoghurt was delicious!]. We then pulled an all night shoot making straight for Dettifoss to photograph the waterfall from the other side this time at sunrise. This morning we had a wonderful sunrise with some gorgeous soft pastel light with mauve tinged skies – the best light of the trip so far [But I am not going to post these shots just yet!]. After more than twenty four hours of travel and photography it was time to catch up on a few hours sleep. Now its time for some lunch before heading off for the evening sunset shoot.

Yesterday evening we headed into what I think is part of the Jokulsargljufur National Park (or it is as least not far away from the Park – Daniel you will need to write the name down for me!) – [Update its THEISTAREYKIR]  to photograph some more geothermal active areas. This was a great location for photography with lots of geothermal activity including boiling mud pools, sulphurous gas vents and huge tapestry of texture and colour in the active landscape. Surrounding the geothermal areas are many large mountains; which themselves make for wonderful photography. We had a good sunset and some great light; which lasted more than an hour.

We photographed from the early afternoon until roughly 11pm before getting a couple of hours sleep before the sunrise and heading back up to Namafjall for a sunrise session. Sunrise was not to be this morning however as the sun was buried behind thick layers of cloud and mist. Which, at least meant we could pack in early and catch up on some badly needed sleep. The continual long hours of travelling and photography really started catching up with me on this mornings trip up to Namafjall, so I was thankful of a ‘bug-out’ and chance to get a few more hours sleep.

Now its lunchtime (another bowl of the most excellent fish and potato stew) before we gear up and drive for a couple of hours into the Askja region in the north-east of Iceland along what is supposed to be quite a rough road in a very remote part of the country. I am looking forward to seeing Askja as it is a pristine wilderness area.