Official BeyondUnreal Photography Thread

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Israphel

Sim senhor, efeitos especial
Sep 26, 2004
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Lisboa,Portugal
Just got back from 2 and a half weeks in Iceland.....what an AMAZING country. The weather was, for the large part, crap (2 or 3 degrees above freezing with high winds, rain, hail, and occasionally snow....and it's their summer!), but even so, the place is just astonishing in it's diversity and just plain jaw dropping epic-ness!!!
Haven't started processing the images seriously yet, I really should be getting on with wedding work, but I couldn't resist having a peak at a few of the shots.
I'll post more over the coming weeks, but I'll put a couple up here now before I've put anything on my blog, 500px, G+ or DA account.

I spent 3 days in the Westfjords, with astonishingly bad weather on 2 of them. I shot this when I arrived after a 10 hour drive across northern Iceland (Icelandic roads are the worst I've ever driven on). I got out of the car, walked down to the edge of the sea and shot this. The small town at the base of the hill on the left is Isafordur, the largest "city" in the westfjords.
[

This is the famous waterfall at Skogafoss. It's a self portrait with the camera's self timer set up to a minute, and me standing around not sure whether the camera (which was about 200 meters away) had made the exposure yet. Usually with waterfalls, I'll shoot longer (1 second or so) exposures, but here I thought a really fast shutter speed caught the force of the water better. I got soaked doing this.


Sunset at the lagoon of Jokulsarlon. There's a huge glacier behind (the biggest icecap outside of the two poles), and part of it cones down the valley here to the lagoon, where icebergs calve off, float across the lagoon, and then eventually out to sea. It's an amazing amazing place, I've never seen anything like it in my life. The sound of the ice creaking is astonishing.
The ice here is 1000 years old, apparently.


I'll post more later. Hope everyone is well :)
 

OO7MIKE

Mr. Sexy
May 2, 2000
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Nalicity, NC
Beautiful!

Thank you for writing a little story to go with the shot. It makes a much bigger impact on the viewer.

I just finished up with my wedding season so I should post some best of shots soon.
 

Zxanphorian

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Jul 1, 2002
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I love this shot. I love how the fibrous-looking water is juxtaposed to the weathered rocks. It serves as a reminder of the utter strength of mother nature. And the fjords in the background serve as a reminder of the slow but relentless power of the ice that once carved the landscape.
 

OO7MIKE

Mr. Sexy
May 2, 2000
5,022
107
63
Nalicity, NC
Beautiful!

Thank you for writing a little story to go with the shot. It makes a much bigger impact on the viewer.

I just finished up with my wedding season so I should post some best of shots soon.
 

Israphel

Sim senhor, efeitos especial
Sep 26, 2004
1,136
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Lisboa,Portugal
Beautiful!

Thank you for writing a little story to go with the shot. It makes a much bigger impact on the viewer.

I just finished up with my wedding season so I should post some best of shots soon.

Thanks Mike...looking forward to the wedding shots. I've just finished up too...it's been exhausting.

Zxanphorian said:
..It serves as a reminder of the utter strength of mother nature. And the fjords in the background serve as a reminder of the slow but relentless power of the ice that once carved the landscape

Iceland is a place that hits you in the face with that all the time. When you walk on the rock, you can see that its lava. The beaches are all black volcanic sand, and there are still lots of glaciers carving out the valleys. In the south (where I took the 3rd photos) you drive for 250km with the glacier to the north of you, and ever so often there's a break in the peaks where a branch of it comes down between the mountains. Every few kilometers you cross a bridge that crosses the waters where the glacier runs off.
There are only 300 000 people in the entire country, and you can see that it's a place where scratching out a living alongside very active volcanos, glaciers and some insane weather has made the population pretty hardy.
 

Israphel

Sim senhor, efeitos especial
Sep 26, 2004
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Lisboa,Portugal
Some shots of Dettifoss (meaning "Death Falls") in north eastern Iceland. It's been photographed a lot, but seeing it up close...hearing it, feeling it, is a truly awesome and humbling experience.

I took a number of different compositions of this place...it's possibly the hardest location I've ever shot. First of all it was hailing and windy, then the amount of spray produced by these falls (the largest by volume of water in Europe) is incredible. The air feels like liquid, and when you're shooting, it means that every time the lens is uncovered, it gets covered in drops of water. So after every exposure, there was a couple of minutes cleaning the lens and making sure there were no smears or drops of water.
Oh, and doing all this whilst standing less than a meter away from the drop with the incredible noise and power of the water just dominating everything.
I shot some longer, wider exposures, but the fast shutter abstracts are my favorites better capture the immensity of the water, and how hypnotic it is. Standing there on the edge, staring at the water, you start to see shapes emerge and it feels almost as though it's pulling you towards it....







 

Rambowjo

Das Protoss
Aug 3, 2005
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Tapeland
Israphel, did you get pictures of Gullfoss? It's another very popular waterfall in Iceland.

Iceland is a fantastic place, I really wish I had a camera with me back then when I went.

And yeah Jackal, it kind of does look like that place in the beginning of the movie, with the humanoid alien.
 
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Israphel

Sim senhor, efeitos especial
Sep 26, 2004
1,136
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Lisboa,Portugal
Israphel, did you get pictures of Gullfoss? It's another very popular waterfall in Iceland.

Iceland is a fantastic place, I really wish I had a camera with me back then when I went.

And yeah Jackal, it kind of does look like that place in the beginning of the movie, with the humanoid alien.

I didn't go to Gulfoss (nor Geyser) in the end because there was just so much I wanted to see in Iceland and some things had to be left out. Gulfoss was on of the places that has been shot so much, and is always has so many people there, that I really didn't think it would be interesting to photograph.

I couple of people in other places have mentioned Prometheus....I've never seen it, but after reading the comments I checked out the opening 5 minutes, and it looks like all of it was filmed in Iceland. They show Landmannalauger, the Skaftafell National park, and very briefly, Selfoss (a waterfall a few km up river from Dettifoss).
 

El JuaKo

Fear the Mariachi
Dec 13, 2003
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8017876986_43810d4fa1_b.jpg


went to film a documentary to the sierra madre in Zacatecas, Mexico last week, sleeping in a school with a billion mosquitoes ain't easy so i had a lot of free time at night.

im trying to get rid of that pole and cables but currently having a hard time.
 

Zxanphorian

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Jul 1, 2002
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8017876986_43810d4fa1_b.jpg


went to film a documentary to the sierra madre in Zacatecas, Mexico last week, sleeping in a school with a billion mosquitoes ain't easy so i had a lot of free time at night.

im trying to get rid of that pole and cables but currently having a hard time.

Nice picture! How long was the exposure? By my estimated calculation, it was about 15 minutes long.