The Horse of Sagas
I was in the middle of a beautiful drive in Northern Iceland just past midnight. The sun was about to dip below the horizon, and I was in the last hour of a five-hour sunset. Unbelievable!
I passed a perfect grassy farm filled with perfect Icelandic horses ...
Read the rest at the Stuck in Customs blog.
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If you want to see how I made this (and how you can too!), visit my HDR Tutorial. I hope it gives you some new tricks!
I had a long lonely weekend in Iceland, so I took my rental Jeep out into the wild. I drove all over the country from dawn till dusk seeing what I could find. The sky and landscape was an ever changing palette of colors and clouds.
The sun is so low on the horizon during the winter that it is almost like a 5-hour sunrise followed by a 5-hour sunset. I drove up and down one of these highways to the next, listening to all kinds of strange and eclectic music on my iPod, occasionally jumping out to take a shot of something like this... it was a perfect weekend.
In the distance, you can see the snowy mountains which always seem to be just a few songs away.
from my daily photo blog at www.stuckincustoms.com
Tags: stuck customs stuckincustoms stuckincustoms.com travel blog travelblog photography photoblog photographyblog hdr high dynamic range imaging digital processing software tutorial hdrtutorial trey ratcliff treyratcliff world Europe Iceland Ísland island north atlantic midatlantic ridge cold road open scenic scenery natural nature infinte inspiring fields sunset brilliant pretty jeep highway lonely breathtaking clouds distance horizon distant stretching november 2007 nikon d2xs
This came from one of my favorite nights in Iceland! This was shot around 2 AM, right when I started feeling loopy.
I was on the edge of some precipitous volcanic rock, and there was a waterfall behind me. It fed this little area of rapids that emptied out into one of the fjords. There had been a light rain for a few hours, but the setting sun cut underneath the clouds to unleash some godly colors.
About 10-20% of my HDRs are in portrait mode. I am just usually in landscape mode for some reason. Part of it has to do with the way people consume these things -- on monitors. I don't like making people scroll up and down to see a photo. That's kind of a drag. That's another reason I don't like those super-wide panoramas. They are so difficult to pan around, even though there are a lot of slick tools. It's just not a "viewing" experience while you are busy using a tool to manipulate the photo itself. Do you know what I mean?
from the blog www.stuckincustoms.com
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This is Gulfoss, the frozen waterfall in Iceland (not 100% on the Geotag, but it is a well-known spot in the area).
Dark age theologians used to believe this was the entrance to hell, which was originally a cold place; the innermost circle of Dante's version was frozen. True believers would come here and cast themselves down into the chasm to try to rescue souls they were told had gone to hell.
It's hard to describe how slippery this place is. I guess I could say it's slippery as hell. The ground is already solid ice, and then there is a fine mist from the waterfall that forms tiny little perfect spheres on top that somehow take friction into a negative physics impossibility.
from my daily photo blog at www.stuckincustoms.com
Tags: iceland waterfall ice hdr sky UltimateShot Gullfoss Nikon stuckincustoms_google_screensaver imagekind stuckincustoms treyratcliff d2x d2xs focuspocus2 getty gettyimages representedbygetty trey ratcliff beautiful pretty colorful fresh dream photo photograph photography professional technique dynamic world fabulous gorgeous engaging charming stunning art artisitic divine light travel foreign international PhotoContest-TNC08 travelphotography adventure hdrtutorial tutorial gulfoss photographer HighQuality frozen snow Hvítá hvita crevice rugged danger golden circle Þingvellir Thingvellir Bláskógarbyggð blaskogarbyggo may 2007
This comes from my HDR Tutorial. I hope it gives you some new tricks!
A good photographer friend in Iceland named Asmundur took me out around the southern part of the island for a bit of shooting. One of his favorite spots that he introduced me to was this little church that sat by itself on a hill. There was a small cemetery nearby where I set up to take this shot.
The skies in Iceland always seem to be idyllic. The icy cloud particles often stream out in impressionist formations, and the HDR technique really helps to bring back the color I saw and felt when I was there on the scene.
from my daily photo blog at www.stuckincustoms.com
Tags: iceland hdr church cemetary religion christ jesus art BRAVO stuckincustoms_google_screensaver focuspocus imagekind stuckincustoms treyratcliff nikon d2x d2xs focuspocus2 getty gettyimages representedbygetty trey ratcliff beautiful pretty colorful fresh dream photo photograph photography professional technique dynamic world fabulous gorgeous engaging charming stunning artisitic divine light travel foreign international holy chapel curtissimmons travelphotography adventure hdrtutorial tutorial photographer HighQuality cross gate sacred top100 stuck customs gates worship god heavenly