Is it enough?

One of my favourite loca­tions is the High­lands of Ice­land. It is per­fect ter­ri­to­ry for dra­mat­ic, oth­er­world­ly land­scapes. It is remote, unpop­u­lat­ed and, well, just dif­fer­ent to any­thing you will have expe­ri­enced else­where. For a land­scape pho­tog­ra­ph­er, it is a feast of opportunity.

The High­lands of Ice­land con­stant­ly tempt the pho­tog­ra­ph­er towards the wider view. These are indeed plen­ti­ful and spec­tac­u­lar views. The dan­ger is that spec­ta­cle itself becomes the sub­ject. Giv­en the impact and dra­ma of your sur­round­ings, you could be for­giv­en for this becom­ing the main objec­tive of your photography.

How­ev­er, if you take the time to expe­ri­ence the indi­vid­ual ele­ments that make up this land­scape, they in them­selves become beau­ti­ful sub­jects and stand inde­pen­dent­ly as expres­sions of the sur­round­ing wider landscape.

This image demon­strates what can hap­pen when you stop try­ing to describe the High­lands of Ice­land and start look­ing for what specif­i­cal­ly attracts you. I was drawn to the iso­lat­ed strip of snow, pro­tect­ed from the sum­mer sun, in a gul­ley. Unusu­al­ly, it has retained an almost pris­tine white appear­ance that has not been marred by debris, dust and dirt being blown about in the very com­mon high winds of Ice­land. Using a long lens, I have reduced the land­scape to sim­ple ele­ments: line, mass, tex­ture, and tonal oppo­si­tion. The snow depicts the gen­tle slopes of the hill­side and bisects the areas of light tran­si­tion­ing to shad­ow. The result is lit­tle more than these few ele­ments, but it demand­ed more than a pass­ing glance from me.

It is an uncom­pli­cat­ed image, but one I find myself attract­ed to. I have wres­tled with the thought, ​‘Is it enough?’ and ​‘Does it make for a good pho­to­graph?’, but when I reflect on when I took it, I was sim­ply respond­ing to some­thing I found beau­ti­ful with­in the land­scape. It is also con­sis­tent with a theme I find myself return­ing to sub­con­scious­ly – resilience – and per­haps that is part of the rea­son I remain drawn to it.