Photography in the Far North of Iceland. Nobody Goes Here.

Today's video is sponsored by Squarespace. All right, welcome to another video everybody and welcome to Iceland. So I'm currently in Reykjavik but as the title of this video suggests I'm going to a part of Iceland that you've almost certainly never seen before. So I'm here to pick up a few supplies that I need and then I've got to take an internal flight and then about a three hour boat ride. So the area that we're going to is isolated, remote and truly wild which is going to present so many photography opportunities, hopefully original and unique opportunities. But first I need to do a bit of shopping. So the place that we're going to is wild and it's going to be incredibly cold so I've got myself a nice very very fancy jacket, waterproof and insulated and I needed some waterproof gloves and now the final item I need is some snow spikes or um shoe spikes so I don't slip and break my, oh yeah, so I don't slip and break my neck. All right so welcome to the second leg of this travel adventure. We have just landed in Isafjordur. I'm going to show you on Google Maps where we are and where we're going. So obviously I mentioned earlier on that we're going to a place never shot before. I'm not sure if there's much truth in that but certainly as I'll explain this place that we're going to is not frequented in winter so we're here in Isafjordur, I'll just show you on the map and we're going to sail out into the Atlantic and around to the north tip of this peninsula, north coast of the peninsula to a place called Hornvik. Now I was invited on this trip by a group of wildlife photographers who are very interested in photographing arctic foxes. Now there is a place on the south coast of the peninsula just here where you can easily photograph arctic foxes but we're going further afield in search of the elusive white arctic fox. That's the dream. Now I'm no wildlife photographer but what I'm really excited about is the opportunity for new landscapes. It's going to be like an untapped winter resource with sea cliffs, a coastline, beautiful snow and mountains and of course arctic foxes. Such a huge dense population of arctic foxes and soon we'll be heading to the boat just over there and hopefully it's not too rough of a trip. I actually feel better. All right so it's a little rougher than it first looked when leaving the harbour but we're all right. Now I mentioned before about the elusive white fox. Well it's not that they're elusive it's just that most of the arctic foxes on the peninsula we're going to, Hornstrander, Nature Reserve and the Hornvik area, they're all coastal arctic foxes and coastal arctic foxes tend to be brown but because there's such a high density of foxes in Hornvik where we're going then there's a higher chance of seeing a white one so I'm very excited about that. Oh man all I have to do now is survive the crossing. All right we're good to go? Yep. Take care of my camera bag. Make it come in nice and slow. Another wave coming in, nicely done. Good wave coming in. Actually surprisingly not too bad. We're not in yet. That's true. Wow well that was far more exciting than I anticipated, quite a lot of seasickness and then the zodiac you can see behind us, the rib boat bringing all of the stuff. It's a really rough landing here so in fact you can see we're having some outboard problems. Hold on. So it appears there's some outboard motor problems and we can't get the boat started so if we can't get the boat started we can't pick everyone else up. Yeah this is, it's not good but this is really, I mean this is why not many people, very few people come here in winter. You can hike here in summer but in winter it's very inaccessible so hopefully we'll get everyone else off the boat and then we can you know relax and begin to explore. Yeah nice one. All right so that was a relatively sketchy landing and definitely frantic. We got here, everyone's here, we've loaded all of the gear up these steps that lead from the beach up the hill to the house that you can see behind us. There's two properties here and nothing else so we are so so so remote. It's fantastic. Obviously we're only staying in one of the properties so I'm going to go for a bit of a walk. I'm not planning on going too far. A lot of the guys have gone out with the hope of seeing some arctic foxes so you know who knows maybe I'll see something but we've got beautiful light so there might even be an image to be had. I wasn't planning on any photography today in this video I just wanted to do the journey of getting here and so yeah we'll crack on have a bit of a walk see what we see. Ah man so I thought I thought I'd show you some of the gear that I brought with me because it's a bit different to usual. Well some additions have been made. So you saw me pick up this jacket with all of my waterproof jackets I've had now for many many many years and they've all failed so I just wanted something that could really do the job. So this is nice thing it looks good it's by 66 degrees north picked up in Iceland and I also have with me, not clothing, but I have some snowshoes because I think the terrain here could be very beneficial. You can see all these hills around me. Well I plan on going up high and exploring this whole area over the next week so the gear that I've got with me, bear in mind we're going to be photographing arctic foxes which I have no experience with whatsoever. I've got my Nikon Z7 II with a 24-70mm f2.8 that's most likely for the landscapes and I've got my 100-400mm for landscapes and hopefully for the foxes if we see any. But what I've also got, wait till you see this, I got in contact with Nikon and they very kindly have loaned me, look at the size of this, this is a 600mm f4 prime with a built-in 1.4 teleconverter so effectively it's a 600 to 800mm lens. This is an absolute monster. So the house we're staying in which is just behind me there it's very basic but it has everything you need it's got beds, it's got a stove and it even has a toilet although there's no running water so we're using buckets with water from the stream. That same water from the stream is also our drinking water and it's just such a cozy place to be and it's so quintessentially Icelandic with a lot of history all around the building so what a place to stay. Now with that being said I do quite fancy an image, hang on you know I can't do this with my finger, I do quite fancy an image over here so I'm going to go and have a look but before I do that because I may or may not have success I just want to say a quick thank you to today's sponsor which helps massively with these trips and that is Squarespace. 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Now I've got a shot in mind that black where the black beach meets the the snow maybe something a bit minimalist but abstract we'll see the the sky there's not too much going on in the sky I don't know and still feeling rough if I'm honest I just want to have a cup of tea and go to bed. Well I thought there was a shot but um I wasn't feeling it and actually I think I was just trying to do it so I could get an image in this video because it feels wrong releasing a video without an image but that's exactly what I don't want to do that's what I want to move away from I only want to release work that I'm really proud of um so yeah anyway oh man I still feel rough from that boat so I think it's about time I sign off but do tune in for the next first arctic fox shot oh my gosh oh hang on hang on oh gosh oh I really shouldn't be filming this I should not be filming this just as I was packing away something caught my eye something moving in the distance it was an arctic fox walking across pristine snow and I thought we've got this the light was beautiful so I broke out the beast big bertha 600 to 800 and just followed this tiny fox up this ridge line with a beautiful pink pastel sky behind now the fox was far away was far away but that's good I'm not I always think of myself if I want to shoot wildlife I don't just want to necessarily always fill the frame with the animal I want to include the environment and that's what we got it was it was a gray fox sorry a blue fox they're gray but they're called blue foxes um and it had a beautiful shape to it distinct shape contrast against the white snow pink peachy sky you know and hey not the world's best wildlife shot but my first arctic fox and I was not surprised sorry I was not expecting that and yeah now now we will end the video all right cheers guys I'll leave you with um yeah I'll leave you with the uh the image cheers bye