When Bragi Kort told me the next location during our week in the westfjords of Iceland in June was going to be an abandoned herring factory, I was half expecting (/dreading) rotting fish flesh and a bed of bones. But it wasn’t quite like that, thankfully, and in fact Bragi was right to be so excited – it was a fantastic location full of massive shapes, textures, industrial machines and window lights. A photographer’s dream and I love so many of his shots I’m accidentally sharing 40-odd here all at once… Including some taken at one of the hotels we stayed at which (to my absolute delight) had a piano (and an open-minded owner!).
I think a personal favourite is the set with the huge upside-down, rusting cone-shape (basically it was a space ship). It was a bit precarious and we had to be careful not to get too close; we were actually very kindly guided around by the owners of the land for our safety, before being left to do our thing.
As you’ll see, I’m suffering from a horrible bout of ‘colour or mono?’ indecision, so am showing some of both. I think I’m quite drawn to the colour ones for many – I love the muted tones.
If you like the images below, make sure you’ve also had a look at this other bumper post, which shows a totally different side of Iceland – the outdoor moonscapes and magnificent beauty of the landscapes (with little old me frolicking about among it all).
I was invited to go to Iceland with Bragi Kort (photo guide and Icelandic local) and Alex Nason (US photographer), for a week-long jaunt a couple of weeks ago around the westfjords of what, to me, feels always like another planet. Iceland is like something utterly unknown. It’s basically the moon, though surprisingly green in places (well, it is the summer, sun never going down, ‘n’ all; when I travelled back from Heathrow airport to my home in Oxfordshire I was dismayed to feel darkness closing in in the evening – even after just a week of permanent light it felt utterly alien – claustrophobic, even!). Alex has sent some absolute gems to me by email, since we’ve all been home, and Bragi has edited about a million photos and sent me tons of favourites in various processing styles. Can you imagine the absolute overwhelm (in a good way) of not knowing where to start with sharing them? I’ve decided to apply some kind of order to my thinking, and divided all his edits into 4 categories (we did all manner of things, from mermaid-esque stuff to shots taken in a quirky hotel in the middle of nowhere, from an abandoned herring factory (yes, really) to lupins (which I am obsessed with) and from outdoor pools to…. a piano (constant love of my life; I write this having just come back from a piano lesson, during which I nailed a few more bars of Grieg and sighed at my utter forgetting of basic music theory since I did grade 8 a million years ago and let it all go to rust…). I also managed to bump into good modelling friend Anne Duffy (Australian-based star some of you will know) and met (and posed nude with 5 mins later) the wonderful Icelandic selkie Svala, as well as spending the week road-trippin’ with my brilliant roomie, US model Lucy Magdalene.
Ella Rose - Photo actress, Muse & Dancer 