I first met Sigga when I was in Iceland in March, 2014. We’ve kept in touch since then, and when I was back in the country at the beginning of the month, I had the opportunity to do a family photography session for Sigga and her two adorable little ones, Bergur and Elisa. The morning was cold as we played on top of frozen seaweed by the ocean, but my heart was warm. This time of the year, the sun rises around 11:30am and sets again around 3:30pm. It feels strange how short the day is but when the sun is out, the light is amazing and it’s like it’s golden hour all the time. The light never gets too harsh.
Thank you Sigga for having me photograph you and your sweet little ones! I had a blast! Here are some favourites from our time together.
By the end of the session, little Elisa was quite fascinated with my camera, she snapped a few shots, including the below photo of her mom :) Not too bad I have to say!
Three. That’s the number of times I’ve been to Iceland now. But no matter how many times I’ve been there, it just doesn’t seem to be enough. The more I go, the more I want to go back. I also feel like I can never quite capture in photographs the Iceland that I see in my mind’s eye.
For this trip, I photographed a very lovely fellow Canadian couple in and around south Iceland for their anniversary session. Then Mike and I picked up a rental car and drove up to the Snaefellsness peninsula and then on to the Westfjords, which is this stunningly beautiful and remote landscape. And very isolated. If you are looking for edge-of-the-world beautiful landscape, this is definitely one of those places.
I think I’ve gushed enough about this beautiful place here, and here. Below are some favourites from this past trip.
Starting from Reykjavik, 3 hours later we were winding to the “top” part of the Snaefellsness peninsula.
The town of Stykkisholmur.
From Stykkisholmur, it was nearly 4 hours on a stretch of route 54 that was badly potholed to get to Holmavik on Strandir coast of the Westfjords.
Looking out onto the Holmavik Harbour from our guesthouse. This was one of the creepiest place I’ve ever stayed in.
Not because of the Museum of Witchcraft across the street, or the fact that we hardly saw anyone around town.
It was a very old house and as soon as I saw it, I had a funny feeling about it.
It didn’t help that we were the only ones staying there haha.
The next day we took a road trip along the Strandir coast. It was 104 km of coastal gravel road pitted with potholes the size of giant watermelons.
The journey took about 3 hors each way since we didn’t have a 4×4 so we drove slowly. At the end of that was a geothermal pool at the edge
of the universe.
“Breathtaking” seems like an overused word, but I can’t think of anything else to describe the drive.
A little seal colony in one of the fjords.
Seeing the Northern lights dance was definitely one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had.
We stayed at a farm in Heydalur for our last 2 nights and the resident dog followed us the whole way on a 4-hour hike…we played fetch with him!
His name is Loki :) (the Nordic god of mischief)
There was also an Arctic Fox that lived on the farm!
I met some really lovely people when I went to Iceland last March. So when I had the opportunity to go back in September, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to photograph Kristin and her family as Kristin is Selma’s sister (you may remember Selma & Andri’s snowy anniversary session).
A lot of people feel that photographers should pick an area of specialty and stick to it, others think that doing a bit of everything is good as you are diversifying. For me, I love weddings as much as photographing families because they both involve storytelling. I love it when families feel relaxed around me and will just do their thing – whether it’s playing, walking, or hanging out. That allows me to just do my thing – document those moments and the in-between moments. To me, the most beautiful photos aren’t the perfectly posed shots, or the “say cheese” smiles, but the ones where they aren’t so perfect, but captured a moment that only lasted a second but is nevertheless precious, and the ones where a bit of the subjects’ souls were captured.
This session was definitely one of those occasions for me. :)
If you’ve been to my site before, you know about my love of Iceland. So when Gita contacted me about photographing an anniversary portrait session in Iceland for her and Matt, I almost fell off my chair. When we met, we just chatted away about travel. I learned that we share the same love for travelling, new experiences and the open road. I also learned that they’d be celebrating 14 years of marriage at the beginning of September. So the trip to Iceland was pretty special. September couldn’t come soon enough for all of us.
I often get asked what I think is the most important thing to consider when working with a photographer. And at meetings, I always get asked questions like what kind of camera I use, whether I use Nikon or Canon, etc etc. While those questions are legitimate questions, I think the most important thing is whether you feel a connection to your photographer and their work. Working with a photographer is like making friends, if you have a connection with them, it’ll be a much more rewarding working relationship. Because photography isn’t just a product, and what your photographer tries to capture isn’t just what the eyes can see.
Thank you Gita & Matt, for bringing me to Iceland to document this milestone in your life and for trusting me to do it.
Ever wanted to be in two places at once? You can at the Bridge Between Two Continents. :)
The day I met Armina & Davið for our session, Iceland was at its wintry, stormy best. Think gale force winds and snow whipping you in the face. Winter was definitely coming that day (excuse my lame Game of Thrones reference, been watching the show lately). Even though it was only cloudy in the morning, but as Armina later said, you cannot trust the weather when in Iceland. :)
We had plans to go to lake Kleifarvatn in the Reykjanes peninsula. By the time we got there, there was so much snow we could hardly see in front of the car and everywhere you looked there was nothing but the whiteness of the snow covered landscape. Then we got to a part on the secondary road where the snow drift was so high that cars could not drive through. At which point we drove back to the city and Davið officially apologized for the weather haha. That’s the thing, sometimes plans just don’t work out. How you work with what’s been given to you is what makes the difference.
We made the best of the rest of our time together and made a brief stop at the Saga Museum, where we stepped out onto the terrace briefly to capture the only outdoor photo from the day. Then we headed to Kex Hostel, where they have this incredible lounge, and is where Armina and Davið like to hang out after work sometimes.
Here are some of my favourite, moody indoor portraits on a stormy Icelandic winter day.
Lilja and Jón are getting married in July in East Iceland (unfortunately I’m already booked that day, cry!) I met them on my trip to Iceland a few weeks ago and took some engagement photos for them in Reykjavik, where they live.
The theme for their wedding is nautical so the harbour was the place we went. They also brought along their sweet Labrador for part of the session.
We didn’t have a lot of time together because Jón had a bit of a work emergency that he had to deal with. However, we made the best of the time we did have together, and here are some of my favourites from their session. Enjoy!
