Of Light And Ice

I’m beginning the departure from the land of blue and sunny skies (as discussed in the previous post) with a few shots of icebergs. The first was taken at Jokulsarlon, a bay on the south coast of Iceland. Here the ice calves off the mother glacier and has to jostle and scrape along in dense formation before finding its way out to the Atlantic through the narrow outlet. It’s a spectacular place to see icebergs up close, as many float by the shore practically at arm’s reach. Here, the afternoon sun really contrasted well with the deep blue hue of the ice.

The next two shots are a little more typical of a glacier outlet (in Iceland, at any rate). As the ice reaches the valley, it melts into a small lake, keeping the little bergs trapped to melt, or eventually refreeze next winter. Cold winds race down the glacier’s tongue and fog rises from it, erasing the distinction between the glacier and the sky above it. Here the landscape can appear truly arctic, practically monochrome but for that tinge of unearthly blue from within the ice.