Iceland Trip Shot with Sony A7, A7R, Ricoh GR

[turtle]

Nine days on the South coast of Iceland. Conditions were severe a lot of the time (gales, hailstorms, sleet, snow, rough seas with constant spray all in one day at one spot!) and the four hours of decent daylight meant not wasting too much time driving during the day.

I shot the lot on a Sony A7, A7R, 35mm FE, 55mm FE, Metabones III, Tokina 16-28 and a Ricoh GR V.

The portfolios are here, which will soon be edited down somewhat:

South Iceland: Sea
South Iceland: Land

I found the Sonys performed very well in what amounted to intensive use in genuinely awful conditions, but there were a few issues that came up. None were show stoppers and I will be writing it all up in more detail on here (The Photo Fundamentalist) and I will post sone more condensed comments on here when my thoughts have crystalised.

I also took a then brand new Ricoh GR with me and it blew my socks off. I can attribute about 30% of the shots to this fixed lens camera, which tells you something....

The trip feels like it never happened. A surreal experience that contrasts starkly with being back in Kabul. Anyway, portfolios for now and I will write more later.

 

[Slingers]

Thanks for sharing, there is some great images. I keep seeing Ricoh GR images I like, it looks to be a nice camera. I look forward to reading about your experiences.

 

[contrelamontre]

Tom: A very interesting read on your blog! Keen already on the follow-up(s). But first and formost really great and outstanding pictures. Thanks for sharing (and also before editing down). Particularly like, though not interested in landscape photography in the first place, that your portfolio abstains from the widespread romanticism in landscape photography. Great PP as well.

 

[jlm]

very nice work

+ to hermann's remarks

 

[Chris C]

Nine days on the South coast of Iceland...... portfolios for now and I will write more later.

Thomas,

I came to the two sets of images after already seeing your blog, so I was intrigued already about your trip but utterly unprepared for how good a collection of work you would amass. I think it's a tremendous set which you should be proud of. Can you get there again during the long daylight hours of late spring or later? If so, counterpoint imagery to these raw, visceral winter images would make a fabulous print portfolio/exhibition/book?

For what my opinion is worth, and with your trip experience having been so different to your Kabul life, I hope you have a considerable break before editing as that way the work will edit itself rather than you edit it. I hope that's not too counterintuitive for one used to commercial editing demands, but I got a sense that the collection needs a restrained hands-off approach.

Thomas Joshua Cooper made impressive large format [film] photographs in Iceland, I think you have bettered him [I consider that to be high praise]. Congratulations.

.............. Chris

 

[Smoothjazz]

Tom,
Your web site is great- it really got me inspired! Your arial photos over Afghanistan are astounding- some of the best photos I have seen in awhile.

 

[Irenaeus]

++ Hermann!

Thanks so very much for sharing—wonderful, beautiful, evocative, enlightening (in the sense of our forebears actually living and even thriving in such conditions) photos!

I also appreciated seeing what the cameras that I've been thinking of using can do in front of a sensitive and skillful and well timed eye.

I must confess to being a bit ambivalent, though—I'd been thinking my own stuff wasn't half bad....

Blessings and cheers,

Irenaeus

 

[Vivek]

What a desolate place!

 

[Georg Baumann]

The ice dolphin is just perfect!

 

[turtle]

Desolate... Oh yes! I thought about this in particular when standing on black cliffs above black sand and black rocks, wearing black trousers and a black parka. Had the wind blown a bit too hard, I think finding me would have proven a little difficult... had there been anyone around to notice in the first place.

While getting battered by the worst of the weather I thought of the many fishermen working in these conditions, day in day out. Visions of WW2 Baltic convoys came to mind.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Chris C, you are right. I am going to step away and come back to them for when the immediacy of the experience has left me. This is one area where I firmly agree with Winogrand's approach. More time, less agonising!

 

[turtle]

Thank you for your kind words, Chris.

I am loosely thinking about another trip there in late spring or autumn, at some point. I feel nowhere near close to being sated. There is still so much I feel I have not explored, both physically and 'in my head'.

As for the editing, you are right. I was happy to place more images online initially, as a 'first cut' with a view to a later edit, after 'the pause'. I have a rather large Afghanistan project sitting under wraps that will be tough to edit, but that excites the hell out of me. I'm on the downslope with that one and will let time do its work and then get a bit of trusted help, as I often do.

This series is still fresh and in a month or so, it will be shaved down a little here... a little there.

I'm looking to make a book from my Afghanistan work first but Iceland is something I am thinking about. Truth be told, I am not as interested in landscape work as I was ten years ago, but Iceland has something special and I felt I touched it for a little while. I know I will go back, just as I visited Varanasi several times to make 'Disorder of Species'.

Thomas,

I came to the two sets of images after already seeing your blog, so I was intrigued already about your trip but utterly unprepared for how good a collection of work you would amass. I think it's a tremendous set which you should be proud of. Can you get there again during the long daylight hours of late spring or later? If so, counterpoint imagery to these raw, visceral winter images would make a fabulous print portfolio/exhibition/book?

For what my opinion is worth, and with your trip experience having been so different to your Kabul life, I hope you have a considerable break before editing as that way the work will edit itself rather than you edit it. I hope that's not too counterintuitive for one used to commercial editing demands, but I got a sense that the collection needs a restrained hands-off approach.

Thomas Joshua Cooper made impressive large format [film] photographs in Iceland, I think you have bettered him [I consider that to be high praise]. Congratulations.

.............. Chris