The pictures in the previous blog posts showed all the rain clouds hanging over the Icelandic highlands that day. It was all the more beautiful when we passed this ridge and the sun suddenly broke through a small gap in the clouds.
»Spot on!« and the ridge’s peak shone in the sunlight.
I had had these mountains in front of my lens before, back then in low clouds and no sunshine, and I had opted for detail shots.
This image looks like a black and white picture, but it is really developed in color.
In the black desert in the Icelandic highlands there are at best a few red craters, but I didn’t have any of them in the picture here. The depth effect was created by the drizzle, which made the back rows of mountains fainter and fainter until at the end there was a white rainy sky above the mountains.
Being on the road in the Icelandic highlands in the rain doesn’t offer the wide views of the landscape, but it unfolds a fantastic depth effect, especially in deserts without any tree vegetation.
This picture almost looks like a black and white picture, if it hadn’t been this small blue spot in the cloudy sky. If you look closely, you can also guess that the mountain lines at the back are somehow overgrown with moss.
Rain, water and a moss-covered mountain ridge. A great and at the same time dramatic atmosphere when for a short moment the sun came out and gave me the right light on the ridge.
In the foreground, three red craters rising from a black ash/lava landscape, and in the background, a mighty highland river running along in front of moss-covered mountains. This is the Icelandic highlands in its purest form. Especially when a blanket of rain clouds still lies ominously over the landscape.
In the slightly different angle of view, you can see what a special feature the black craters with their red rim form. There, only a large black plain can be seen, through which the highland track extends to the river bank: read more or write a comment …
A landscape full of rhyolite valleys and a small river winding through the middle. Isn’t it great what views a drone can capture?
I’ve enjoyed this many times in the lonely areas of the Icelandic Highlands. Again and again you could see man-made tracks through patches of moss. I avoided this destruction of nature and then used the drone to put the »tripod« in impossible places.
I had been to this geothermal area once before in 2021, but in completely different conditions. At that time it had rained for days and even on that day the clouds were still so low that nothing could be seen of the mountains around it. They could only be glimpsed above the rhyolite ridges.
In addition, I didn’t have a drone with me to approach the fumaroles without damaging or even destroying the mosses. Now I had seen some fumaroles steaming slightly away from the Rhyolite Valley and decided to fly there once with the drone, because access via mossy areas was clearly forbidden. I was amazed that I would see such a colourful landscape in front of me or under the drone with the sunlight. From the side, I had only seen the rhyolite slope and the steam plume behind it.
On the other side of the ridge on which the track runs is a valley built up of rhyolite on both sides, from which fumaroles also steam out in some places. The panorama below shows the whole valley: read more or write a comment …