Iceland – 2020

The production company we work with in Iceland is the lead operator in the country – True North. Their client roster is a tour de force of movie studios in Hollywood and we fully acknowledge that photographs such as Punk would not be possible without them. It is not as if we can turn up at the Glacial lagoon in Jokulsarlon two hours before sunset and hope that one of the most aesthetically blessed horses in the country will be charging towards us through the water and ice. The odds of that are long. But even when some things are assured, there is work to be done.

To create the mood I was looking for, I needed to match the horse’s dynamism with an ethereal serenity, which is not easy as action images tend to work against a state of calm. I knew I was going to get wet, as my position had to be at ground level. Any elevated position would be immediately obvious and the sense of immersion would be gone. I also wanted as much depth of field as possible to amplify the sense of place, but we had a good amount of light to work with, albeit with the setting sun at 11am. Nevertheless, the “execution of idea” risk was material, even with the best Nikon gear. The horse’s head makes the image – adding fire and energy to the arctic backdrop. Horses are easy to photograph and are over photographed, but I have not seen many images like this.