“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”–Harper Lee
The above quote is very profound and talks about human perseverance and strength in the face of extreme and extenuating circumstances. So, with apologies to Ms. Lee and her devout fans, I feel that quote literally applies to my relatively banal experience in Iceland where I was on a photographic adventure. This edition of blog ends up being the third part of my Iceland trilogy though a trilogy was far from my mind two articles ago.
How was I licked before it began?
#1) It was a beautiful day when I landed in Reykjavik and the photography tour is to start the next day. I took in the sights of that beautiful city, and enjoyed the day relaxed and yet a teensy bit anxious about the start of the photographic adventure about to start the next day. I was joining 29 other photographers and four internationally renowned master photographers who specialize in landscape photography. I was intimidated by the talent and apprehensive about my own skills or more likely lack thereof. One of the key elements in a good landscape photograph is the composition. The art of composition that has been my Achilles heel. It is the artistic component of a landscape photography and a critical one at that too. Iceland and magnificent landscapes are synonymous, and I was hoping Iceland’s majestic locations would help even me to capture praiseworthy images. I am licked already, stacked against such talent.
#2) My full format camera died on the second day. I had to use a backup camera which has APSC sensor. The recommended lens for the tour was an ultrawide lens in the range of 15mm-24mm focal length. The ideal combination being a full format (35mm) camera with a lens in the aforementioned range of focal length. I had a 17-35 lens which gave a diagonal view of 104 degrees on a full format camera. The same lens on APSC would give 80 degrees of field of view diagonally, so approximately a twenty five (25) percent loss of view.
The image below is what I was getting with my back up camera.
The image below is what I would have gotten with my now broken camera. As you can see my entire shooting strategy had to be revised to recoup the lost coverage of the scene, often in poor light, drizzle and challenging terrain for perfect alignment.
#3) My camera started collecting dust as the days went by, since I was changing lenses to suit dismal lighting conditions and equally worse weather conditions. Given the paucity of time, I was not able to take the usual precautions when changing the lenses. The image below is but an example of the dust on the sensor in the back up camera.
#4) Except for the day I landed and the day I departed, it was cloudy, and raining often, with hardly a few minutes of sunlight and sun peeking and “peaking” through the break in the clouds.
The gloomy days as seen above are what I am talking about, when I was looking for bright and sunny days. The one below was how it was on the day I landed, and I hoped my rest of the trip would be, all sunshine and some dramatic sky that Iceland is known for, with some clouds to add some drama.
The one below was how dramatic the sky was on the day I was leaving Iceland.
As you can see from the above, why I felt the quote by Ms. Harper Lee applied to me in the literal sense. So, I went off on the trip and tried my best to “make that proverbial hay while sun shone”. It had taken a considerable effort to keep my spirits up, and not get demotivated. As far as weather went, I was in the same boat, I mean bus my fellow photographers were and other than commiserating with each other in our meteorological misery, there was not much succor to be found. I could not shake the gloom of disappointing my family and friends with nothing to show for, after all that incessant talk leading up to the trip. I had to muster every ounce of resolve to salvage from the lickings. It took me almost a week to bring myself up to even download the images from the camera, which is very unusual for me. Once unloaded the photos, and randomly processed a few that I knew were my “money shots”, my confidence restored, albeit a tad. After culling over the 3000 images, I felt good that I kicked my lickings enough to feel I did not let down my friends and family and more importantly I did not let myself down.
