Flying over Isafjardardjup in a small Cessna from Ísafjörður airport, we left civilization behind for a few days. Hornvík is a bay on the Northern edge of Hornstrandir a remote nature reserve with no roads. Our flight was spontaneous with no set return. We made an agreement with the pilot that he will radio to the park rangers if he is able to pick us up after a couple of days. There were 2 of us on this trip and we each had our camera gear, a tent, sleeping bag and some groceries. I also had a little camping stove with mugs and a jar of instant coffee and some instant noodles (our only luxury).
Hornvik in Hornstrandir
You can’t get much further North than this on mainland Iceland.
This is a place were Arctic foxes wander around without fear of humans and they are positively encouraged to enter the campsite by small groups of Icelandic sweater hippies. The foxes are small terrier type dogs. Hardly any threat to large animals, they feed on the bird life, insects and small rodents.
On the first evening I set off to walk barefoot along the pure un-polluted sands of Hornvík bay with only my basic camera gear; tripod, Canon 5D2, 24mm and 50mm prime lenses and did my usual long exposure with Magic Cloth along the beach.
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Private Northern Lights Tours
Foxy Companion
It was a beautiful evening and I got many wonderful shots, but as I headed inland to climb one of the hills, I picked up a little companion. I was set up with a wide angle with a ND filter – this is not ideal for wildlife!! But as he was hanging around, I got set up for a landscape shot, with couple of second exposures.
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I am not a wildlife photographer and these are far from the best I could have achieved, but these long exposures hopefully convey how relaxed the Arctic fox was around me.
Back to Landscape photography…
