When You Don't Get What You Want, And It's Better

This is a story of one of my images from the Black Sand Beaches in Vik, Iceland. A dangerous beach but filled with beautiful contrast and textures. My wife and I planned a huge day starting out at Glacier Lagoon, or Jokulsarlon, which is roughly 5:30 hours from Reykjavik. With about 5 or 6 hours of daylight during November we needed to get up early and hit the road but that’s for another story. I’ll just say that by the time we arrived at the Black Sand Beaches of Vik the shooting light was pretty much gone. We rushed out and capture a few decent images while braving the incoming tide and waves but that was about it. We left the beach and went in to the Black Beach Restaurant that was situated in the parking lot where we’d parked “Dusty the Duster”, our rental car. As we sat and drink a nice Icelandic Beer we came to the quick conclusion that we needed to change up our schedule and head back there the following day to photograph it and see some of the other things along that stretch of coastline we currently were missing out on. And that leads us to this image.

Long story short, my wife and I found ourselves in this fairly large “hole” in the mountain with jet black jagged rocks over head, the black sand and pebbles under foot and the ocean staring straight at us. I’ll be honest, with the stories I’ve heard of about this area, I was to keen on lingering too long in a spot with know way to retreat. But there we were, along with two or three other photographers (one drone pilot). I had an image in my head. Dead middle of the “cave” picturing the black sand and the jagged black rock above with the white washed waves coming in. Black and white all the way. The problem was, being a tourist area we had people lingering to one side of my frame or the other. I waited patiently along with the others. As those people started to move to the front of the cave and around the corner I got into position, setting already set, and waited for them to disappear around the rocks. Just as the did and just before I could get a shot of this older man came walking, head slightly downcast, into frame. I could hear the others give a slight grumble but the image truck me straight in my intuitive face. It was MAGIC! This gentleman wasn’t a tourist. At least he didn’t look like one. with somewhat disheveled clothes and a downcast gaze, he was too concerned about the immense beauty around him but rather looked like he was just out for a walk. One step in front of the other and each step leaving a deep footprint, he made his way through the image. Snap, one image, and it was magic. He was unaware that he just made my day. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. A loan man out on a stroll. Honestly if I’d gotten the shot I thought I wanted, it would have been rubbish compared to what I believe God specifically put together. This is by far, one of my favorite images . It makes me pause. I feel different emotions each time I look at it and I’m alway curious as to what this man was thinking and what he went on to do with his day.

I would love to hear what you think of the image. What does it make you feel?