Iceland In Monochrome Part II

Once we left Reykjavik the focus was on aerial shots. This was, after all, a Drone Workshop. I wasn’t sure that I would find much for the Q3 Monochrom going forward. The first couple of spots we stopped at were cool from the air, but had little interest from a ground perspective, let alone in monochrome.
Eventually, once in the highlands proper, things started looking up. The lunar landscape of the highlands was proving great for the Q3M. Initially, I flew the drone first, getting the aerial shots before messing with the land camera. But before long that had reversed and I was frequently walking around with the Q3M before launching the drone.
Right away I noticed that the combination of the monochrome sensor and orange filter really did nice things to the scenes. Being fixed at 28mm made things bit challenging but for the most part I didn’t lack for compositions.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that the Q3M was more than just the “backup land camera” for when I couldn’t fly the drone. The workshop was bifurcating almost from the start. Primary mission, color aerials. Secondary mission, Dark and Moody™ Iceland.

The lunar aspect of the highlands was beautiful in a minimalist, vaguely sinister way. There were no trees and only intermittent vegetation, unless we were in an area with green moss. Then it was nearly radioactive green, which was great for the drone shots but did little for the land camera.

At one location, after driving for about 90 minutes from the hotel on a very rough road, we arrived at The Spot and piled out of the van. Talor and Halldor advised us to get up in the air quickly because of the approaching rain clouds. The others immediately launched; I was eying the approaching storm and judging if I would have enough time to capture some land shots in the interesting terrain around the drone airport. Off I went. About 10 meters from the van, I saw this:

I congratulated myself on finding the only plants within 20 miles and moved on. Eyeing the horizon, I backtracked along the “road” in search of compositions, but the farther I got from the van, the sparser the landscape became. I was beginning to feel the occasional raindrop. I fired off one last shot and hurried back to the van.

Back at the van, the others were landing, swapping batteries, and going back up. I decided I should probably send Flying Thing up despite the looming rain. I got airborne, saw The Scene, and took pictures of it.

I don’t know what the others were spending so much time photographing. Sure, there was a pretty scene from the air: shoot a couple of frames and good to go. That’s what I did, and I barely used 20% of one battery. From the sounds coming from the controllers the others were holding, it sounded like most of them were taking hundreds of shots.

This became a recurring theme during the workshop. I would go up, see the scene, shoot it, work it for a few minutes just to be sure, maybe take a vertical, then come home and land. Ten minutes, maybe. The others were often up there for 20–30 minutes.

For the rest of the workshop, I either shot the Q3M first and then flew the drone, or flew first and then, instead of sitting around waiting for the others to finish capturing their 285th frame of the Braided River, I would strap on the Q3M and go see what Dark & Moody™ Iceland had to offer from the ground.

Sometimes there was no compelling image. In that case I would shoot a picture of the Drone Zombies.

Most of the locations we shot from were just off the side of the road. The road itself was remote and gave little clue to the wonders that could be found from the air. Occasionally, the beautiful scene above was matched by an equally compelling scene below. At least to me. The others showed little interest in ground-based shots, with one exception: Marina, who had brought an infrared-converted camera. Her philosophy, as she put it, was to “shoot like a 10-year-old.” By that I’m sure she didn’t mean taking pictures of dog poop or friends making goofy faces, but rather being open-minded and seeing what was there.

I could relate. I do the same. In fact, 10-year-old me was actually taking the same kinds of pictures geezer me is taking now. For me, it’s not a realization but a continuum.

She got some great images with that IR camera. At one location I was wandering around with the Q3M and found a pile of nets, always a good monochrome subject. I made a few frames, then walked over to Marina, who was still flying her drone, and tapped her on the shoulder. “There’s a pile of nets over there.” Once she landed, she hurried over to investigate.

We crossed a lot of rivers in the Highlands. That seems like a routine part of driving in this area. Most of the crossings were drama-free. To get to one spot, however, Halldor ended up detaching the trailer before we drove in. Apparently the riverbed was soft, and if we tried to haul the trailer through there was a nonzero chance of getting stuck midstream. Halldor said he didn’t want to get wet unsticking the van, so off came the trailer.

The van was 4WD and we never had any trouble in the rivers. It got a bit sketchy in sand at one location, but we never got stuck.

Most of the river crossings were mundane. Every now and then one would be interesting.

Our hotels were functional, but several had a barracks-like vibe. They reminded me of Yukon River Camp or Coldfoot in Alaska—minimalist, utilitarian housing for pipeline workers, decades later repurposed as funky hotels for tourists.

In Selfoss, though, we had a modern hotel. It was still weird: a Scandinavian kind of place with minimalist rooms. It caught my attention because it resembled a prison camp designed around shipping containers.

Since I am constitutionally unable to stay in a funky hotel without photographing it, out came the Q3M.

There were a few more Q3M-friendly shots to be had. This was during one of the last shoots, on the coast. You know the drill: the others were firing off thousands of frames from above while I rooted around in a junkyard behind the van.

Eventually we ended up back in Reykjavik. Workshop complete. I had an extra day to wander the city, so I took the Q3M for a walk. There’s a really nice waterfront path that I followed to Harpa, the concert hall. There were plenty of Q3M candy shots along the way.

While I was strolling along the waterfront, I heard someone say “Hi Rob!”. It was Talor, off for a morning jog. There is something uncanny about hearing someone call out your name in a foreign country where you have no expectation that you know anyone. The same thing happened to me in Cerro Castillo, Chile. I was in the dining room trying to decode the buffet when “Hi Rob!“. Same record scratch moment. That was Ryan, from a workshop a couple of years prior. So in Chile and Iceland I had people call my name. Weird.

‍ ‍And that’s a wrap on the Iceland Drone Workshop. For me, it turned into two workshops in one: color from the air and monochrome from the ground. I enjoyed both modes equally and came home with a lot of images I’m very happy with.

Iceland in Monochrome