Photo by @thearcanetales on Instagram.
It seems like just about any day (honestly hour) of the week one can find jaw-dropping photos of Iceland. Often times it's a purple-red sunset sky with Kirkjufellfoss flowing mystically in the foreground and the towering Kirkjufell looming behind. Other times it's an incredible landscape, blanketed white with snow, the sky shimmering shades of green from the Northern Lights. There are so many fantastic photos from Iceland that I've almost grown numb to them; very few now make me stop scrolling and look at them. However, @thearcanetales' aerial shot of somewhere in Iceland gave me pause; I found their photo so inspiring that I chose it for the photo of the week! Not only does @thearcanetales use a wonderful color palatte, but they take the heavily photographed landscape of Iceland and make it something new and interesting.
I can't remember exactly when I first became obsessed with aerial photography— I think it was probably while watching Planet Earth when I was younger, the camera pointed straight down at massive herds of buffalo or elephant or some other wild species— but the ability to point the camera down and create an abstraction of reality is truly mesmerizing. George Steinmetz (@geosteinmetz) does this tremendously well. My favorites of his images are his aerial shots of New York City, arguably the most photographed location ever, but his photos present both a unique angle and a refreshing new take on the Big Apple.
The reason I find aerial photography so wonderful is yes, that it presents a unique vantage point, but more importantly that it: 1). Creates an abstract representation of reality, conveying solely the emotion of the scene as interpreted by the photographer, and 2). It reveals the subjective nature of an otherwise objective (kind of) medium, photography.
Blue Horse I, Franz Marc (1911).
In their photo, @thearcanetales renders an image that faintly resembles something tangible; the only indication that this is indeed a photo of the earth rather than a painting, is by the hint of land mass protruding on left side of the image. However, the earth itself is barely recognizable. The aerial angle has obliterated any of the usual signs that we're looking at a landscape; there are no hills or divots, no animals or people, nothing to give us an indication that this is land and not some other feature. In doing so, I think that @thearcanetales captures the visceral emotion of Iceland, rather than conveying simply a landscape. Avoiding the use of (almost) anything that reflects physical reality and combining it with bright, vivid colors, @thearcanetales captures the feeling one would feel being present in the scene. It's almost as if the photographer has captured the emotions of the northern lights, as if they were a living entity. What @thearcanetales has done with Iceland is no different than what Franz Marc did to horses, except that Marc had the advantage of using a paintbrush in creating abstract shapes.
Indeed, what makes this image so special is the fact that @thearcanetales uses a camera, traditionally considered to document reality as it is, to represent a more subjective reality. Normally when you take a picture you do so to document the world around you, be that an animal, a mountain, or someone's expression. In that way the camera is relatively objective (so much so that Bazin wrote of the ontological properties of film). However, in creating an abstraction of what really was, @thearcanetales employs a sense of subjectivity. The photographer here uses the aerial angle convey his interpretation of the scene, his interpretation of the emotion. I think it's absolutely fantastic— @thearcanetales interpretation of Iceland conveys a feeling that I want to have, they inspire me to create that emotion in my own photography.
One final simple note about the photo: @thearcanetales renders blues and teals terrifically. I know from my own photography that capturing rich shades of cooler colors, in particular blues and greens, is not easy feat. The fact that @thearcanetales employs a milky, Blue Lagoon-esque stream of teals and blues across their photo is a testament to their skill. It's that blue/green color/feeling that truly makes the photo inspirational. It's also a bit of a stretch, but given the abstract nature of the photo and the heavy use of blue (and green) I couldn't help but think of Der Blaue Reiter.
In sum, I still have no idea what I'm looking at when I see this photo and that's what makes it so incredible— I have to stop and think every time I see it. Check out @thearcanetales on Instagram, they have some other incredible aerial shots!