A mission to Iceland

In October we joined photographers Emil Sollie and Hallvard Kolltveit on a trip to Iceland. The two Norwegians travel the world as lifestyle and commercial photographers, and this time they were shooting with friends for the travel gear brand Db. We equipped the crew with Scandinavian Edition jackets to keep them protected from Iceland’s harsh climate.

Our flight left Oslo early in the morning, and we landed in Keflavík at 8 am to a beautiful sunrise. With two 4x4s packed, we drove towards Vík, our first stop in the south of Iceland. On paper the drive takes three hours – in reality you add three to six more for scenic stops. Thirty minutes in, we spotted the first mountain top covered in fresh snow. A quick photo session, and we were back on the road.

Time flies when you drive in Iceland – three hours felt like one and a half. The roads are surprisingly straight, and there is always a waterfall, a glacier or a mountain top to look at. We stopped at Skógafoss, a waterfall 25 metres wide and 60 metres tall. Bring a waterproof jacket: the air is full of spray, and our clothes were quickly covered in tiny drops of water.

We reached Vík late in the afternoon. It is probably one of the most photographed places in Iceland, and it is easy to see why: a dramatic coastline, black beaches and rugged sea cliffs, with glacier-topped mountains behind. The northern wind was blowing hard, but that didn’t stop us from eating pizza while watching the sun set over the town.

The alarm went off at 05:30 for the drive to Jökulsárlón, Iceland’s largest and best-known glacier lagoon, two and a half hours southeast of Vík below the Vatnajökull glacier. This was the main goal of the trip: Emil and Hallvard were shooting Db’s new Glacier Green collection, placing the bags in a glacier landscape to show off the colour. Jökulsárlón is an impressive sight, with huge green and blue blocks of ice floating in the lagoon.

Next stop was the fishing village of Höfn for a quick bite, before driving to Stokksnes for a sunset shoot. Twenty minutes outside Höfn, Stokksnes is known for the dramatic Vestrahorn mountains, which rise to 454 metres and drop straight down onto a black sand beach. It is a magical place – you can even find a wave to surf (we did) – and easy to spend hours just walking around.

After a hot meal at our apartments, Hallvard spotted the first signs of northern lights behind a mountain on the drive back. Having lived in Lofoten for two years, he knows a thing or two about them: plan for a long night, he said – they are usually strongest between 1 and 3 am. Later that evening we went back to Jökulsárlón to see if he was right. After a couple of hours of waiting, the magic started. It was worth every minute of a cold night.

We woke up to typical Icelandic weather: hard wind from the north, and snow and fog coming down from the mountains. The only plan was the 500 kilometres back to Reykjavík, so we let the road guide us.

An hour into the drive, Hallvard took a hard right onto a gravel road. «Look at that glacier arm coming down the valley,» he said. «I think we can drive all the way up with the 4x4s.» Until then we hadn’t really used the cars for what they could do – most stops had been close to the main roads. This was something else: 20 kilometres of rough gravel, potholes full of ice and water, and a river crossing before we reached the foot of the glacier.

With nothing to stop it, the wind was stronger than anything we had felt so far – gusts of more than 20 metres per second almost lifted us off the ground as we got out of the cars. Standing at the edge of a glacier, miles from anyone, feeling the raw power of nature, was a highlight of the trip.

Closer to Reykjavík, the sunset was another highlight. The wind had lifted volcanic sand into the sky, and it lit up like fire – a fitting end to our road trip through the southeast.

After three days in places where the next restaurant can be two hours down the road, we were ready for some city life. Reykjavík is the world’s northernmost capital, in the southwest of the island, and small enough to explore on foot.

It is hard to miss Hallgrímskirkja, the 74-metre church that is the tallest building in the city – only an office building in the suburb of Kópavogur is taller.