Frozen icebergs

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Read the behind the scenes story – audio transcribed:

So I have travelled in Iceland lots of times and somewhere that I’ve always wanted to fly my drone is at Jökulsárlón which is the glacier lagoon in Vatnajökull National Park. As you might experience when you go into nature, there are lots of places where drones are banned, due to nature disturbance, wildlife protection and also, the fact if an area is very busy with people, just from a safety perspective.

So it can be really difficult to actually fly your drone at some of the really iconic locations, and a lot of people ignore it and that’s over to them but I’ve always been on the side of wanting to respect those things because they’re there for a reason. But also there is a process to get a permit. So I always apply for permits when I’m shooting commercially and for that, you know, things that I’m doing for, my, my shoots, that’s just a matter of the, the process. And so when I looked, it was possible to apply for a permit and the dates that I was travelling weren’t dates that were, sort of off limits, if you like, because of, the nesting season of bird life and so on in the area.

So I put in a request with several locations and just to explain my love of Iceland and how I’d always dreamed of droning and knew that the weather could be a bit tricksy, particularly with the wind speeds. But if it was possible, would I be able to fly my drone at these locations and at the busiest sites like Jökulsárlón.

I was happy to, you know, shoot either first thing in the morning or just before sunset, when it is definitely a lot quieter. And I got the permit and I couldn’t believe it and then I needed the weather to line up. So the first night I was hoping to, to fly, we arrived and we, bearing in mind we had had wall-to-wall sunshine, and it was meant to be like that the whole time we were there.

As is with the mountains in Iceland and anywhere in the world. Mountains have their own little agenda and their own weather system going on. And we actually arrived and there was the briefest of blizzards at the point at which there was one hour of daylight left was just a blizzard. So it was quite cool to go over and walk on the black sand beach that was gradually getting more and more snow covered.

But my opportunity to be able to fly the drone was scuppered. However, a couple of nights later, the moment arose. It was quite windy, but on the edge of what is still possible for my drone and so I tested that all out and managed to actually have the flight of dreams over the ice. And this one, which is very much a bird’s eye view top down onto the ice, was one that really caught my eye to include because it has something so special there in one of the icebergs.

And I can see a heart, and I hope you can too. And just for me, like my heart, I feel like my heart home is Iceland and it just felt like such a moment because I put in so much time with Iceland and so much effort to be able to have the permissions, and that moment to fly there, that it just felt really, really moving and special to see that shape in that heart in the ice.