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Glaciers
Long days in Iceland with a time difference of 2 hours to Germany. It’s light here, while at home those who stayed at home go to bed.
Early in the morning we started our tour to the lagoon of Hoffellsjökull. There is no tourist infrastructure, the car has to have a lot of ground clearance and the tyres have to be well inflated to reach the lagoon.
A harmonious light situation awaited us today, light cloud cover making the sunlight a little more diffuse. The contrasts of the icebergs were clear.The constantly changing light through the clouds made the icebergs alternately light and dark. The consistent structures were brought to life by the permanent change of light.
Morning at Hoffellsjökull glacier lagoon © Julian Köpke Changing the lens is not a change of perspective. Nevertheless, the change is worthwhile, because the higher focal length has the effect of enlarging a section. The change of light does its part.
Morning at Hoffellsjökull glacier lagoon © Julian Köpke The drive to Skalafellsjökull via the F985 pass road was somewhat adventurous. Although our Japanese car kept making very different beeps and noises, the meaning of which we could not always identify, the car was technically usable for this road.
At the top we found a base camp for glacier tours with snowmobiles. A short walk over rocks of all shapes and sizes brought us to the edge of the glacier. A cool, almost constant wind blew around our ears. Gloves were great for working with the camera. With a rather dull light I created a panorama of the early glacier.
Glacier Skalafellsjökull at the end of F985 © Julian Köpke The most impressive structures of the glacier are found crosswise and lengthwise to the flow and are called „ogives“ resp. „band ogives“. We had already admired their charm many times on the ascent. We devoted ourselves to them on the descent.
Glacier Skalafellsjökull ogives and some band ogives © Julian Köpke -
Patterns and glacial flows
This morning we were far from convinced to book a photographic sightseeing flight. Because the clouds were hanging 20m above the ground when we left our hotel. The closer we got to Skaftfell, the brighter it became, but still plenty cloudy. Only on the peaks of Vatnajökull was there plenty of sun.
The experienced pilot was sure we would have fun. And so it came to pass. Because our pilot liked to take pictures from the air himself and knew exactly how to get the best light conditions in front of our lens in the clearing weather. How impressive it was may be understood by pointing out my rapidly aching hands, which from focusing, positioning the camera and releasing the shutter on both sides had me feeling the saddle joints after only half an hour.
Our flight was a complete success thanks to this young pilot whose machine was more than twice his age. Only the engine was new, he said.
Glacial flows and patterns on Iceland © Julian Köpke After crossing the first glacier flow, we reached the glacier itself. With the old Cessan we slowly crept up the glacier. I felt reminded of films where the altitude limit is reached and the hero has to dare to jump. The cold downdraft winds were hard on the plane, but the pilot still guided us safely up the slope.
The sight of a glacier reminds me of frozen waves that take you up and down with power. The frozen glacier seems less dangerous, almost still.
Flying up the glacier Vatnajökull © Julian Köpke We left the glacier area again to approach the glacier lagoon Jökullsarlon. From above, everything looks small, I didn’t even notice the many icebergs I would later find from the plane.
Flight from Vatnajökull to Jökullsarlon © Julian Köpke In one hour I took 700 pictures, which is about 50 GBytes of data. At the end, the exhaustion of the hands and body was noticeable. We only had bananas and nuts for breakfast, as we had to leave the hotel before breakfast. Fortunately, we had gloves, scarf and hats to brave the cold that came in through the open plane windows.
Glacial flows and patterns on Iceland © Julian Köpke Deep sleep had been indicated and possible before the evening excursion. With a small diversions via Hafnarnesviti lighthouse, we reached the Viking Café in Stocksness at 11 pm. Many cars took the same route. Northern lights at Vestrahorn were the final destination for all. For the first time I experienced polar lights with my cam under clear skies.
Polarlights at Stocksness © Julian Köpke 
Polarlights at Stocksness © Julian Köpke -
Diamond Beach (Jökulsárlon)
With a slight disappointment we arrived at the Jökullsárlon for the third time. The weather forecast had promised sunshine and we were already there at 9 o’clock. We were alone at the location, a rare privilege. However, we encountered an almost closed cloud cover, which could not be pushed away by the strong downwind of the glacier. Only on the glacier itself was a remnant of blue sky to be found.
Common Eider in Jökulsarlon © Julian Köpke The name Diamond Beach comes from the small pieces of ice that come from broken icebergs that the glacier has calved into the glacier lake Jökulsàrlon. They glitter in the sun like fairy-tale diamonds – when the sun is shining.
Diamond Beach at Jökulsarlon © Julian Köpke Using frame averaging, I was able to get long-term recordings without using a neutral density filter. I left this one in the car. In 8 seconds, with around 45 pictures that are averaged, I achieved vivid results in landscape photography.
Diamond Beach at Jökulsarlon (8s, Automated Frame Average) © Julian Köpke -
Ice on Iceland
You don’t go to Iceland to watch a solar eclipse. The visibility of the event is unlikely. Taking a solar eclipse with you as a by-catch on a trip has a different quality.
So we managed to record the early and late phases with a tripod, we had to miss the maximum due to heavy rain and dark clouds. Only a few minutes later than the maximum at 10:16h local time we drove off road into the wilderness and took this photo through the clouds.
2021 06 10 partial Eclipse, Iceland at 10:23 a.m. on Þjóðvegur between 202 and Dverghamrar © Julian Köpke With a picture like this in the box, every other photo of the day is a gift. The icebergs of Jökulsarlon were a cool attraction with reflections, sunshine and rain showers alternating.
Icebergs of Jökulsarlon © Julian Köpke After a short visit to the hotel we drove back to Diamond Beach, which is located right on the southern coast of Jökulsarlon. The many small ice blocks formed by the icebergs broken by the surf gave the beach its name.
Diamond beach at Jökulsarlon © Julian Köpke -
Cliff at Morsum
In Morsum one finds a cliff on the northern shore at the border to the Hindenburgdamm, shaped some 120.000 years ago, which is a national geotope. It is a soil structure formed by northern European glaciers with red (limonite), yellowish and white(kaolin) sands. These sands itself had been deposited 7 – 11 million years ago. More detailed information can be found in a Wiki (English oder German).
The image is an HDR of 5 exposures, intentionally overexposed and combined manually and one processed with software (HDR Efex Pro 2). Doing so no traces of a technically generated HDR image are recognizable. The resulting HighKey image looks natural. I adopted this way of processing HDR images from Harold Davis.
View of Morsum cliff in eastern direction. © Julian Köpke The layer structure only detects at close range. These layers are like loose sandstone. Unfortunately, they got knotted. Some layers a pretty coarse.
North Sea is rough and versatile. The water comes close to the cliff. It was low tide today when we passed by. So we didn’t get wet feet.
Patterns of deposit layers at Morsum cliff © Julian Köpke 
Patterns of deposit layers at Morsum cliff © Julian Köpke It is spring on Sylt, during the year everything blooms later than in the South.
Willow catkin © Julian Köpke
