“There is a joy and adventure in travel. Each new road opens up new possibilities and adventure. – Ed Lehming

There is something wonderful about discovery, even in seemingly barren places like the interior plains of western Iceland.

I made the photo that inspired this digital painting during a trip to Iceland with my son in October of 2018. The landscape, like much of Iceland, is simply “raw”. We had been driving southward for most of the day and decided to venture inland toward the very visible glaciers northeast of the town of Borgarnes on the east coast.

The landscape is barren and windswept, with the exception of towns and farms along the Hvitá River, which we followed inland. The contrast between lush green farms in the river valley and the jagged lava fields is remarkable. As during much of our travels, the road was covered with a thin layer of snow.

We travelled inland as far as we could go safely. Iceland has many interior roads which are closed to vehicles during winter months and our car rental contract prohibited us from venturing onto these “F” roads. When we got near the vast glacier fields, still some 30 kilometers to the glacier itself we realized that our planned route was not accessible and we’d have to turn back to the way we came. We parked the car for a bit and spent some time enjoying the beauty of this relatively untouched wilderness of blasted rock, ice, and numerous glacial streams that eventually join up to form the Hvitá.

On the way back, we found this great vantage point, where the road ahead just snaked off into the distance. The photo shows a large mound of volcanic rock, a vestige of an ancient volcano, the Hvità valley, and distant lava fields that make up the north face of the valley.

It was a beautiful scene, so vast and untamed that the image does not do it justice. As I stood there making the photo I felt very serene and just drank it all in, letting my vision drift down the road, into the distance.

Somehow, as is often the case with photos, it did not communicate this feeling very well and I was determined to bring life to the image.

Over the past few months I have been playing with the image with several of the brush tools available in Photoshop, trying to pull out some of the textures and colours that I perceived while I stood there. The resulting image was satisfactorily completed yesterday and as I look at it, the feelings I experienced nearly five years ago are flooding back. I thought I’d take this opportunity to share it as well as the story of its creation.

iPhone 7 @ 28 mm
1/2817sec, f/1.8, ISO 20