Unspoiled beauty
Pawel Zygmunt heads to the Faroe Islands and finds the best light he’s ever experienced in his adventures with landscape photography
Mission: Document my travels during a visit to the eternally stunning Faroe Islands Photographer: Pawel Zygmunt Location: Oldtown, County Dublin, Ireland Kit used: Nikon D810, Nikon 16-35mm f/4, Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8, Lee 0.9 ND graduated filter, Lee Little Stopper, Manfrotto Neotec 458B tripod with 498RC4 ball head
Website: www.breakinglightpictures.com
Towards the end of last year, I got the idea to visit Faroe Islands and I immediately started the preparations for what I would photograph.
I love doing location research and planning hikes – it helps to build and nurture a real sense of excitement. It also helps to minimize the likelihood of failure… I travelled with a friend, and we experienced all possible kinds of weather – as well as enormous amounts of luck.
And so it begins
Getting to Dragarnir, on the island of Vágar, required a 14km hike and a four-hour round trip [1]. The potential compositions in this place were endless, and because I was there four hours before sunset I had a lot of time to wander around. It was tricky to take this photo because the sun was setting behind the arch and islet. I had to bracket it with three shots and do a bit of work in Photoshop on the shadows and highlights.
This photograph of a cliff near the village of Funningur shows the best light I have ever experienced in my adventures with landscape photography [2]. We went for a hike on the island of Eysturoy, but forgot to check the wind speed. As it was constant 70mph, hurricane-like wind from east, I had to crawl and hide behind one of the rock formations on the top!
It took me a while to get my gear sorted. I took the camera out and secured everything to my body with all possible straps. While it was hard to see, I knew the sun had started rising already. Looking north, the sun flourished with phenomenal light. The wind was so strong that it was
This photograph of a cliff near Funningur shows the best light I have experienced in my adventures with landscape photography
turning the focus ring on my camera! Most of the photos were slightly blurred, however, I fought like a lion and eventually got this keeper of a photograph.
We had good weather for most of our stay, but there were two or three days when we could see the place from a completely different perspective. At the end of Sørvágsvatn lake, we found this dramatic coastline [5]. The ocean was really powerful here, crashing against the cliff and the sea stack looked absolutely stunning. The wind lifted water up and threw it at the cliff, creating nice mist [4]. I could feel the spray on my face and had to clean the camera lens every few seconds.
After four days of constant driving, hiking and shooting landscapes, we were absolutely exhausted. However, that didn’t stop us from carrying on and getting more material. We decided to try and capture Kallur lighthouse and the cliffs on Kalsoy island [3]. In order to photograph such a gargantuan place, I had to take three vertical shots at 19mm and then stitch them together in Photoshop later. The trip was epic in not only one or two places, but everywhere that we managed to get to.
After four days of driving, hiking and shooting, we were absolutely exhausted. However, that didn’t stop us from getting more material