Uncategorized

Iceland Part 3 /  by Kitundu

Nail in fencepost securing barbed wire.

I hadn't taken photographs for ten years and I wasn't yet into birds. So I focused the lens of a borrowed camera (thanks Mike and Karen) on the things I wanted to remember, no matter how small or seemingly mundane. The images became a visual diary.

A group of sheep wandering in a landscape that easily dwarfs any creature that sets foot upon it. Epic.

Knot in dead branch.

Earlier, when I first arrived in Reykjavik, I took a walk. The tide was out.

BLW in Iceland /  by Kitundu

Looking back on the year after I turned 30 from the year before I turn 40. I was, and am, still in love with Iceland. Here are more images from the series.

This was the view from the backyard of Klaustrid. Such an epic, windswept vista. The valley to the right leads to the Vatnajokull Glacier. I walked for hours through these fields.

Those hours often found me striding through the hills when night fell. I'd eventually lose my nerve beat a hasty retreat to the warmth and security of the house. In those hours I might only ever see one person... sometimes no one. It felt vast.

One of the few companions met along the trail, along with the wandering sheep and beautiful and well composed horses.

BLW in Eastern Iceland /  by Kitundu

I was in Iceland in 2004 for the Klaustrid Artist-in-Residence Program. This BLW series will share some images from my brief time there (in no particular order). I was at Klaustrid (pictured above) the former home of writer Gunnar Gunnarsson. Skriduklaustur is a museum honoring him in Fljótsdalur, about 15 miles from the main (but tiny) city of Egilsstadir. Some images in the series were taken in Hallormsstadur, and others by Lagarfljót, a lake fed by jade colored meltwater from the Vatnajökull glacier. Many thanks to Skuli and his family and to all the wonderful people of Eastern Iceland. Takk fyrir!

Looking down from the craggy hills toward the beginnings of Lagarfljót. The road arcing into the distance will pass through one of Iceland's only remaining forests, Hallormsstadur. The water flows from right to left.

Preparing horses for the annual gathering of the sheep.

The sheep have been roaming free and are now strewn far and wide in all directions. Every fall they are rounded up and gathered in a great ring on the valley floor and their owners will come to claim them. These sheep are just beginning the journey.