EINFALT (2017) < Previous | Next >
In 2017, I’d decided to go for it and take a trip to Iceland. I’d seen images of the night skies, and the mountains and something was just calling me, incessantly. That year my coworker had really been struggling with a personal life change. We’d been friends for a while, so I knew how hard she was taking it. She told me she was looking into travelling with a group to somewhere in Northern Europe for a getaway, and we laughed about how groups of people and tour buses just weren’t her style. I went out on a limb and invited her to come along with me to Iceland later that year. After a few months of thinking about it, she agreed to go, albeit a little reluctantly. “What’s there to see in Iceland?”, she quipped. We started dating some time before we left, and laughed how we may not be on speaking terms once we returned.
I’d only seen pictures before arriving in Iceland, but it absolutely astounded me with it’s natural, raw beauty. Driving around the Ring Road (the perimeter of the country), there is no glitz, no adulteration. It’s just simple...einfalt. We’d experienced so much adventure before we got to this point in our drive, including surviving the dangerous Oxi Pass. Yeah, the stories are real - it has left many drivers in tears, huddled in prayers, and vowing to live their lives differently if they don’t roll off the mountain. I was cursing, while she was crying, but we made it through.
This house sat unassuming, nested in the mountains of volcanic sediment and ice. This was along the Ring Road itself, but there were no other houses around. She saw it, and shouted to stop, so we pulled over as close to the ditch as possible. I was a little grumpy, at first, but her awe and the excitement on her face was too much for me to keep driving. Iceland roads aren’t packed with traffic necessarily, but I had to dig my camera out of my bag, and walk down the road a good quarter of a mile to get a decent view. I had to use my telephoto lens due to our distance, but it started speaking to me once I started to really focus on the moment. Just as I started taking the pictures, the sun started to shine through the dense layers of clouds, providing the perfect lighting for the valley, illuminating the glacier behind the house brilliantly.
Solitary structures like this really resonate with me. I was somewhat solitary for so much of my life, and there’s something familiar about a lone house, surrounded by mist and muted colors. Iceland has a lot of grays, blacks, and browns in it’s landscape, but it’s still one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been fortunate enough to visit. As for the coworker I once dated...well, we got married this year. It was January, with gray skies, a little rain and it reminded us of Iceland. It was perfect.
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