Strokkur's grand finale culminates with a pinnacle of big drops, spray and steam, all of it volcanically heated, translucent from this angle to a partially cloud-diffused sun, a stop-action scene belying its brevity. The whole event, from blue-water dome to fountain to collapse, often lasts less than 5 seconds, but makes memories for a lifetime. [To Part 3] [Back to Part 1] Haukadalsvegur, … [Read more...]
Strokkur Part 3: Silhouetted Hot Tower
About a second after its blue-dome beginning, a Strokkur eruption fires a cone of scalding water 50 feet aloft and rising fast. This geyser hasn't been so productive throughout its known history, as earthquakes have both clogged and unclogged its chamber. The current run of activity, however, commenced in 1963 when volunteers removed blockages that had kept its innards plugged for six … [Read more...]
Strokkur Part 2: Shooting Sunward
In Icelandic, Strokkur means "churn"--an apt concept for its remarkably cyclic behavior. More faithful than Old Faithful, Strokkur's conduit refills, pressurizes, and blows skyward again a 50–90-foot column of near-boiling water, every 4–6 minutes. This makes situational photographic composition and preparation fairly straightforward—much more so than for the great majority of geysers here and … [Read more...]
Strokkur Part 1: The Blue Dome
Located steps from its mostly dormant geological namesake (Geysir), the Strokkur geyser is the most well-known and reliable one on Iceland, if not the world. Its blasts are predictable enough that I could get the focus, exposure and filtering (3-stop graduated neutral density against bright sky) just right to freeze-frame it at the very moment the bubble starts to burst through a dome of … [Read more...]
Geothermal Waterscape
Rivulets of water, ranging in temperature from frigid to scalding, pour down a gravelly hillside in one of Iceland's largest and most peculiar geothermal fields, forming a fluidly abstract landscape of undular texture and strange tones. Behind such alien beauty often lurks hidden danger, and this area certainly qualifies. Some of the island's most notorious eruptions (including Krafla, which is … [Read more...]
Dragging a Dust Plume
After the brief but scenic Phillips tornado had spun its way north of the highway and dissipated, a second tornado developed from the same mesocyclone. At first, this one similarly left a long gap between condensation funnel and small debris cloud. That soon changed in a major way as it got closer. In the meantime, however, a dense plume of non-rotating dust rose off nearby plowed fields south … [Read more...]
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