ANGELA B. PAN

One of my new years goals this year was to take a photo trip at least once I quarter. I’m telling you all this so you can help keep me accountable. So winter photo trip- check. Iceland was amazing. I don’t know how much more wintery photo experience you could get.

I have a few more places where I’d like to go this year. Nothing is booked or anything yet, so they’re all just ideas right now but I’ve noticed a common theme. They’re all cold weather places!! If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you’ll know that the beach is one of my favorite places to be. As soon as I figured out all the layers I’ll be needing this year, I started questioning all the places that I was excited for. My mind immediately went to Caribbean islands, piña coladas, and flamingos. I had to go back and look at some of my sunny beach photos to make myself feel better.

So this was taken at Cinnamon Bay in St John, USVI. The water is particularly calm in this bay so I felt comfortable going into the water with my camera. I was probably in chest high water when photographing this inflatable raft when I decided it was time to hide the camera in a spare towel I brought. Then this bird flew onto the boat and was posing, waiting for me to take his picture. So back out of the water I went to get my camera and into chest high water for this shot. I think my favorite part of this image is the clarity of the water. You can see all the little lines in the sand on the very bottom. It just looks so peaceful and WARM! Now I gotta make sure that there is some kind of beach trip in 2017.

When visiting a new country, I always try to learn as much as I can about the food, people and language. It’s the best way to totally immerse yourself into your new surroundings. In Iceland, it was a little difficult to learn the language. First off, everyone speaks english. Really good english too! So being able to listen to the Icelandic language was really limited to just locals in a restaurant or people talking quietly amongst themselves. But I did manage to learn a few words. “Foss” means waterfall. So if you notice all the waterfalls in Iceland end with the term “Foss”. This image was taken at Skógafoss which is in a small town called Skógar. You add foss to the end of it, you have the Skógafoss! Pretty cool huh? Another important word to know is “Kaka” which means cake! Who doesn’t love cake right? So if you wanted to say chocolate cake, you would say “súkkulaðikaka”.

Now that we’re talking about food, the food was great. Expensive but the overall delicious. I don’t think we had one bad meal. I ate a lot of smoked salmon, at least once a day. There aren’t very many vegetable dishes. It’s all very meat/seafood oriented and to our surprise, a lot of pizza. I’m not sure if that was just a tourist thing but almost every restaurant we went to had a lot of pizza options. We noted one day that the pepperoni pizza was cheaper than the vegetarian pizza.

The people are very nice as well. Super helpful when you have a million and one questions about travel. Even when they knew you were a tourist, they didn’t look at you funny or treat you differently which was much appreciated. However, I did notice that a lot of them weren’t originally from Iceland. Many were from different parts of Europe that just fell in love with the country. I can totally see why minus all the cold temperatures.

One travel tip to Iceland. Bring lots of socks! Like way more than you need. I’m so glad I did.

In general, you should wear waterproof clothing from head to toe in Iceland. It was raining everyday but one day while we were there. The waterproof clothing really helped to keep me warm. But even if you’re lucky to have great weather on your trip, you’ll still get wet. The huge waterfalls have lots of cold water spray that will soak you, depending on how long you stand there. And if you’re like me, you’ll want to get close to the water on the black sand beaches to photograph the waves. The waves are so much bigger than you think they are. It kind of reminded me of Hawaii, but definietly not surf-able. Not fun when they come crashing down and into your shoes. So it didn’t even matter if I was wearing waterproof shoes, my socks still managed to get wet.

We spent a fair amount of time in Vik. One whole afternoon to visit two different sides of Reyjnisfjara with a little break in between for lunch. The first stop was a calmer side of the beach. We were the only ones there and the waves weren’t huge. I was also surprised by how soft the sand was. Just like regular sand but black. Thats where I was able to capture this long exposure with my Ice neutral density filter. But then after lunch when we went to the more commonly visited side. This was where the big waves are. I was running back and forth between the tides to try to capture the water. Eventually, the water won and my feet got soaked. They were so uncomfortably cold and wet. I had to dry off immediately in the car. So glad I brought extra socks 🙂

If you guessed Iceland yesterday than you are correct! This was shot last time I was there. I was with a group of people who weren’t photographers. This time I hope to spend more time photographing this beautiful country. I can’t wait to explore!

Views from the top of the world. Love this perspective that a lot of tourists don’t get to see. If you’re interested in something like this and visiting Tokyo, definietly definietly check out EYExplore. I highly recommend them and tell them I sent you 🙂

In other news, today is a travel day. I’m going somewhere veryyyy icey. Can you guess?