Iceland: the 64th degree north, longitude. Were the entire country inhabitable, the population could be distributed so that there could be three people per square kilometer. It’s an otherworldly place that feels too far east from the Americas and too separate from the rest of the EU, where countries’ borders cling to one another in a large, communal mass of earth. It is a little utopia that rests in the centerfold of a wildly enveloping expanse of waves that form the Atlantic Ocean. Quietly, it bubbles and breathes as tectonic plates shuffle and shrug beneath a mysterious mass of volcanic rock. Actively dreamy, it moves in its own circles, untainted by the mass consumerism that permeates the lives of those living atop more vast expanses of land.
Perhaps Icelandic culture has always been a part of me, unknowingly. I watched vaporous rainbow landslides soar across rock pools below waterfalls, and could feel my belief in magic restored. In Iceland, many Sagas tell of elves living in the rocks and caves. I’m told that many people in Iceland still believe in the elves, and build them small houses.
For me, Iceland was a dream. Not in the longing sense, but an actual dream. I could’ve sworn that everything I saw gave me déjà vu, a strange tugging of my heartstrings one only feels when they remember a memory after having forgotten it for years. You wonder if it ever even happened at all, or if it was a figment of your imagination. I saw a house that was only the wooden framework of a crumbling shack, which I’m sure I recognized from a childhood dream. Seljalandsfoss, a waterfall you can walk behind, gave me a similar tickle of the soul as I recognized its landscape from somewhere in the back of my mind.
A woman I met in Iceland told me that everyone there sings because singing is good for the soul. I heard many songs during my visit. Every person I met had a golden aura that hummed its own quiet melody. It makes complete sense that musicians such as Björk, Sigur Ros, and Mum make the kind of the music that they do. It is the music of an upbringing of folklore, unspoiled landscapes that stretch all the way to the horizon, summer days that never turn to night, and winter days of dressing in the dark, awash in dewy hues.
71 Comments
That first photo is my favourite, they are all beautiful
heavenly
These pictures are so beautiful! I wanna go to Iceland so baaad now, especially as it kinda shows how amazing sigur ros’s inspiration is and people like that! I’m also in love with the coat…
i went to iceland, and was the most beautiful place i have ever been to. be perpared to miss it though. i went there at the end of july, and i still feel pain almost every week about not being there. it really dug in its hooks into my heart. if you go there, be sure to take lots of pictures. you’ll remember iceland forever. everything is so casual there. i took a photo of björk’s house! and some actors and a film crew were staying in the hotel we were at. it really feels like another planet there. i have too much love for this place.
This photoset is so perfect I’m having a hard time believing it’s real.
thse are breathtaking! you don’t really hear too much about iceland, but it’s a beautiful place. #6 and #19 are so lovely in an almost alien way.
I love how #19 is kinda creepy and still magically beautiful at the same time
Love these pictures! You’re an amazing photographer!
Wow, these photos are so stunning! Sounds like an amazing trip.
fashionfledge.blogspot.com
These pictures are so beautiful and the writing tells the trip like a story. It’s so lovely :)
Taylor x
I really like that this one’s about a place rather than people! There should be a monthly segment about a really cool place.
Beautiful!
Just.. wow! I am so amazed with the current photos on Rookie!
gosh.That’s awesome!
Love that nature, too!
I want to go to there.
That’s what I was just about to say!
holy shit, these are breathtaking. iceland is one of my top dream destinations, and these photos only solidified that desire in me.
So cool! I lived in Skagastrond, Iceland, earlier this year and am making a fairy tale movie bout it!! (Should be finished with editing in September ) :)
lizlayton.wordpress.com
Wow, how nice is your life <3
I love 18 even more because of the caption.
That last image is like a dream
This is STUNNING.
So beautiful, Eleanor. Ugh of COURSE Bjork’s homeland looks like this.
Iceland is beautiful! I want to go there so bad!
So beautifully written and captured – definitely translates something magical. <3
Woah how crazy, I was just in Iceland! It’s so beautiful there.
Heavenly! I’ve always wanted to go to Iceland… okay I’m going to go ask my parents if we could go next summer haha.
I am going to live here someday.
My family is from Iceland and I have also been there and it is so great to see someone else’s beautiful pictures and experiences!
So beautiful! Planning to visit there someday.
“I’m told that many people in Iceland still believe in the elves, and build them small houses.”
I’m moving to Iceland omg
Every single photo is so, so beautiful. This has to be my favourite album on Rookie. I was actually thinking this morning that perhaps I’d like to visit Iceland someday… then these appear! I definitely want to go there now that I’ve seen these. So dreamy.
i love looking at these and reading your captions, what you said about feeling like the place made you think about magic and your actual dreams seems to make a lot of sense when i’m looking at the photos. they make me want to seriously seriously unconditionally extremely go to the places i wished to be as a kid, submerged in nature and building houses for fairies… man… also i really liked flipping through the three of rachel in the same place walking and the landscape changing behind her that seemed rul genius. i really miss nature when i’m in the city… and being slow and soul centered??!?! it’s nice to see these.
These are quite literally breath taking,(I loved your writing too, by the way)! I MUST find a way to get to Iceland someday. It seems so whimsical and surreal!
i think this is one of the most perfect combinations of photography and words that i’ve ever seen.
So beautiful and magical. Also, your writing really made it even more special.
So lovely.
These are all so beautiful! Going to Iceland has been my dream since forever!!!!
This place looks so beautiful! I shall visit here someday. :)
I went to Iceland in March and recognise loads of these places! I went Gulfoss too and the waterfall you can walk behind, of course reykjavik, thingvellir and we watched vatnojikull explode too, and we went to eyjafjallajokull which basically looked like a mountain made of broken up oreos. It was so magical, almost too magical for it to exist. Although there was a lingering smell of eggs nearly everywhere! These pictures capture that magic perfectly, I still haven’t got half of mine developed and this has prompted me to do so!
ethereal really :)
i wanna go to iceland.
Iceland is top on my list for places I’d love to go. These photos only enforce that. Something so peaceful and organic about Iceland. Like it is just a land for little nymphs. I love the mustard, red and navy homes against the stark yet majestic landscapes. One day.
Looking at these on my phone so quality is shit, but I LOVE so many of these. 1,5,6,10,19 and 20 are my favourites. I really really want to go to Iceland now :)
Iceland is a dream.
And #6 is definitely becoming my new wallpaper or something.
Hey Rookie!
I LOVE ALL these PHOtOs!!!
i think my favourites our…
… … ALL OF THEM!!!
now i really want to go to iceland :)!!!
!
Majestic, really.
Iceland is my dream, my longing, my hope and my escape. This photo journal made me the happiest girl alive for a few minutes.
Beautifully captured and narrated. These all hold a certain magic to them.
i”m going there in less than two weeks. bringing bunches of film.
OMG! I love evryhting you wrote to accompany the pictures and i love Bjork and all thos epictures are beautiful and lovely and i want to move to iceland now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow the paragraph about Iceland really is magical, as are the photos.
Anyone else think that no. 18 is a bit like Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog? Love it
Oh my god! Iceland is gorgeous! I honestly had no idea it was such an amazing place. Sounds like an incredible trip.
Oh boy, that’s real life paradise <3
it’s so pretty, i can’t believe it’s true
ah I want to go to Iceland really badly now!
these are amazing photographs!!
I’ve been looking at these for ages trying to form words to best express their beauty and it’s quite hard. I’ve often dreamt of visiting Iceland-as you described it seems very otherworldly. I’m crazy about the abstract landscape photographs-they’re so unusual to see from you as I’m more used to seeing your fashion work and portraiture. though I love them all, the 19th photograph for example is so wonderfully ghostly and eerie but also serene. I love how small she is and the faded nature of the photograph in conjunction with the pale water.
these are such a visual feast and I am incredibly inspired. now I just have to find visual inspiration and atmosphere in the places that surround me as I’m not in Iceland.
This was amazing! I will be spending atleast a month in Iceland this November working on a farm and this has made me even more excited then I already was!!
i love the photography … does anybody know what camera is used?
I totally regret going to Greece this summer.. I so should have gone to Iceland..
I met people from Iceland in the summer camp I did a month ago and they became pretty much my best friends. To me, this is beautiful in a very sad way, because it reminds me of them and how far apart we are (I live in Brazil). I couldn’t see all of these because they’re too beautiful and I wish I was there too bad. They brought tears to my eyes because Iceland is such a huge part of me now, and it’s weird to see this place I dream of so much being shared in this website. Now I know what me and my friends are gonna do when I go there: road trip! Thank you for that, Rookie. I love you even more.
I have just spent two weeks in Iceland after years of dreaming… So unique and beautiful.
everyone should go!
Fair warm below the ice…
Lately, I’ve been having a strange yearning to end up in Iceland. This just reinforces that.
When I saw that these photos were taken in Iceland, I made a truly frightening raspy, high pitched noise that resembled a whisper scream/someone’s soul being sucked out???
I really love the photos, and I’m really REALLY obsessed with Iceland.
Wow. Beautiful. This photo album kind of blew my mind. Each and every photo speaks on its on AND as a unit with all the others. I have to credit the skillful photography, and note that the way the album is composed is entirely cohesive; it very much illustrates the beyond gorg landscape and general dreaminess/epicness of Iceland.
I just got back from a three week trip to Iceland.
I think Rookie reads my mind.
I’d planned it all year. It’s an amazing place- one thing you didn’t say is how friendly all the people are. They are genuinely sweet and helpful with a wicked ironic sense of humor. And the people in Reykjavik are very very well dressed. ;)
I have a few pictures on my blog of Iceland, just to join in-
This slightly blew my mind to see this on Rookie.
Went to half of these places with school last year – I’m kind of obsessed with Iceland! As everyone else bought t-shirts and stuff, I’m there with this book on the history of Iceland ^_^
love it xoxo