View Finders

(soft bright music) - [Announcer] SIGMA is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world, and we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(soft bright music continues) (water whooshing) (birds calling) (bright ambient music) (screen whooshing) - [Announcer] Mpix is a proud supporter of "View Finders."

From our materials to our American photo labs, (photo thudding) (tape tearing) we believe your adventures are worth celebrating.

Mpix, print what matters most.

- [Announcer] Support is provided by Visit Oconee, home of "View Finders" with historic landmarks, parks, and year-round events.

Learn more at visitoconee.com.

- [Announcer] Troncalli Subaru is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."

(suspenseful ambient music) (screen thudding) - We okay here?

- [Ragnar] We have no traction.

- [Paul] We have no choice.

- This is crazy.

(vehicle rattling) Oh!

- Oh boy.

- Don't look down, everybody, don't look down.

- [Chris] Oh, that didn't sound good.

Wait, are we stuck?

(screen thudding) Annually considered one of the safest countries in the entire world.

- Home to the largest glacier in Europe.

- This island's energy is 90% green.

- This is Iceland.

(waves whooshing) I'm Paul.

- I'm Chris.

And we're the View Finders.

- And we're the View Finders.

(bright country music) (bright country music continues) - [Chris] Oh my God.

(suspenseful ambient music) What happened?

Did something hit?

(car beeping) Would it help if we got out, the weight?

Anything like that?

Okay, let's do that.

Oh my God, this is insane.

Holy crap.

This is a lot crazier than I thought.

- [Paul] We had a lot of gear, which required a trailer, but pulling one of a roads like this comes with plenty of challenges.

We weren't sure if our plans had been seriously derailed.

Fortunately, Ragnar has plenty of experience with situations like this, and after a while, he found enough traction to get us back on our way.

(engine roaring) - [Chris] Oh my God.

Holy.

That was nuts.

I know to you, that's just, like, another day in Iceland, but to me, that was really freaking crazy.

(Chris laughing) I can't believe that.

That was far more intense than I was expecting.

Well, I totally get why you don't take a rental car up this road.

(bright music) Silence on the radio tonight Feels just like the first time Out here on my own Away from all the cars and all the fistfights Feels just like the first time I'm on my own (water whooshing) If ya called 'Cause you missed me (shutter clicking) Then just say it That's your head's Exploding out (shutter clicking) And you need a place to hide I wanna believe it (water whooshing) I need to believe it I wanna be where you are And be there you to see it all (shutter clicking) I wanna be closer I'm needing to hold ya (shutter clicking) But there's 3,000 miles - You've lived in Iceland your whole life?

- Yes, I'm born here, yeah.

- You've been here, you've seen it change, What has it been like to grow up and live here in Iceland?

- [Ragnar] I love it.

I think it's the best country in the world, even though it's cold sometimes.

You know, it's never not cold, but you know, you get tired of it.

You want the sun.

(soft ambient music) But when you, you know, when you go to the sun and it's too hot for all the time, I want to go back.

I want back, I want this fresh air and the freedom to go anywhere, and go up to the Highlands.

We're not gonna meet anyone today.

- Really?

- I don't think so.

- So we will be basically by ourselves out in the wilderness all day?

- Yeah.

- [Chris] It always blows my mind here in Iceland, just how many waterfalls there are, just like that.

- [Ragnar] I think someone counted over 10,000.

- [Chris] 10,000 waterfalls?

- [Ragnar] I'm not sure.

It's in the back of my mind, someone counted 10,000 waterfalls.

(water whooshing) (soft ambient music) - My feeling right now about this shot is it's massive.

It's got a lot of different layers to it, a couple of different falls, you know, left to right, and it's just kind of overwhelming at times to just come to a scene like this and try to break it down, and try to see what you want to accomplish with your shot.

So I got two different shots already.

The one shot that I really wanted to get is from the backside there.

There's a small stream of water that's leading into this fall, but to get to it, I'd have to take my gear and kind of hop over some water.

And I tried something like that last year up in New Hampshire, and it didn't work out too well.

So (laughs) I'm playing it on the safe side this time.

Unless somebody wants to toss my gear over the water to me, I think I'm gonna play it safe this time and just get the shot that's more manageable.

(shutter clicking) (ambient music intensifying) (water whooshing) So this is why I always tell people, "Look up, down, left, right, back, and front, everywhere you can for a shot, because while I came out here, and I immediately saw the big, grand scene, if I turned around, there's also another shot right here.

We got this little stream of water, which I was thinking about jumping over to get that shot, leading you right up into that mountain there, so I think I got a pretty good shot here.

I'm gonna maneuver around with the tripod here for a little bit and see if I can get this shot here, because I think this is something as well.

You come for this shot, you got an extra bonus shot right here, too, so you can't go wrong with that.

(shutter clicking) (bright ambient music) - Just a quick update, (water whooshing) first of all, that's an amazing waterfall.

- It's on.

- It's an amazing waterfall, and I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I wanted to enjoy it.

- Tell the people why, Chris.

- That is because I got a little too aggressive with my FPV drone flying, which is the one I fly really close to everything.

(drone humming) And I skipped it off a rock, (drone humming and thudding) and it flipped on its back, (water whooshing) and I had no idea where it was.

And so I walked around for the better part of half an hour looking for it, and looking at the signal strength of my goggles, and then looking for it, and it was nowhere to be found.

And I realized I needed to get a picture of the waterfall for the show, and I needed to experience the waterfall, so I gave up, gave the goggles to the cameraman, Nathan, and I went to get the shot.

(shutter clicking) (bright ambient music) So I get a couple of shots that I really like this waterfall 'cause it's a beautiful waterfall.

- It sure is.

(water whooshing) - And I look up and what do I see?

Like, an apparition.

- The hand of your cameraman.

(choir vocalizing in harmony) - The hand of my cameraman walking up with my crashed drone that I had basically in my mind written off forever.

It was never to be found, and he totally saved it.

- He looked sad, folks.

- I was sad.

- I'm not sure there was a tear coming down, but he did look sad.

- There weren't full tears, but there was a longing for the drone, because I knew it was probably gone forever.

- Yeah.

- But I think what this has created is a moment, this is as good a moment as ever to introduce the audience to Nathan, the magic behind the camera.

- And the savior of drone.

- Yeah.

So we gotta do that, and here he is.

Nathan, thank you so much.

- You're welcome, Chris.

I'm glad to help, and glad to be a part of the show.

Thank you.

(bright music) But there's 3,000 miles between us You're waiting at home - The northern lights are emission of light caused by the interaction of solar particles and the atmosphere of the Earth, and we are lucky enough to be living in an area on the Earth called the auroral oval.

So the auroral oval is kind of like this donut-shaped region around the Arctic, and Iceland is always under this auroral oval.

And that means that aurora is seen in our sky every night, just sometimes it's faint and sometimes it's bright, and if it's bright, that's because the solar winds are favorable.

(bright violin music) - [Chris] One of our goals for this trip was to photograph the northern lights.

People travel from all over the world to have this experience.

- [Paul] Unfortunately, as photographers know all too well, the weather doesn't always cooperate.

- [Chris] Night after night, throughout our entire stay, it was nothing but clouds.

Disappointing, but while we can control many things on a shoot location, the weather isn't one of them.

- [Paul] Guess we need to go back?

(bright music continues) (water whooshing) (bright music continues) (water whooshing) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - [Chris] This is first class right here, man.

Yeah, grade A photography because of the water, the green moss, the black volcanic sand.

- That leading line.

- Distant line, yep.

- [Paul] Automatic leading line right there.

- [Chris] Texture in the sky.

- Yep.

- With the clouds.

I feel like we're almost getting, like, a drone style shot, but with our good cameras, and I'm really, really excited about this.

- [Paul] I actually see a couple shots here, 'cause I think we can compress this a bit and get a little closer to the river or to the mountain up there?

But I'm gonna go for the wide one first, the big, grand one, and then I'm gonna make that mountain a little bigger by using a longer lens, getting closer to it.

- [Chris] Yeah, I see what you're saying.

- Yeah.

- And you could go, I think you could go horizontal or vertical with this.

- Yeah, yeah.

I'm gonna go vertical on this just to give the- - [Chris] Yeah, I mean, it's got- - [Paul] The length of this thing.

- [Chris] It's got a lot of potential, a lot of options.

- [Paul] With a wide lens to get the bigger perspective, get the water leading up to the mountain that's back there.

If you use a wide lens, it kind of makes this mountain a little smaller.

So if we get closer to it, which I will do with another lens, you see how the size increases (bright violin music) from that to that?

Now, if I put my 70 to 200 on, it's gonna make it even bigger, but I'll lose some of this here, but it's okay, because there's still some leading lines with the water right there.

And I may get to, like, right here, but it's gonna make it a lot bigger, make that mountain a lot bigger.

- This is just one of those places where sometimes you just want to take it in.

So, my initial reaction walking up to this is get the camera out, get the shot, but I also have this other voice that says- - [Paul] Live in the experience.

- Yeah, enjoy the moment.

- [Paul] Yeah.

- Be present with this.

Don't be thinking about my shutter speed, my aperture, what lens I'm gonna... Just pause and enjoy it, 'cause it's rare.

(shutter clicking) (bright ambient music continues) (shutter clicking) (water whooshing) (bright ambient music continues) (sheep braying) So we just pulled up to this new waterfall, which looks really beautiful.

I haven't even walked over to it yet.

As soon as I got out, this caught my eye.

I think at first glance, there's nothing super special about it, but the reason why I like it, and the reason why I'm gonna take a photo of it is I like the way the waterfall is cascading down the side of this mountain and literally leading to this really old building.

It's kind of creating this balance and this connectivity between where it's coming off the top of the mountain, that water flowing down, and then going directly behind the old building.

I think in the frame with the composition, with the crop that I'll end up doing, I think it'll work pretty well.

Of course, I'm not positive until I get it up on my screen, but it has enough potential for sure for me to take the shot, which is what I'm doing right now.

(water continues whooshing) - We got to this second waterfall here.

The rain let up a little bit, so I think we'll be okay.

It looks like some sun's about to break through, but in this one little spot, I see about maybe three or four different shots that I can take, and from each little location, I can get different compositions.

So for one, this big, little horseshoe or half circle here, I've gotten already two shots that I think will work, but it also has, like, a little island of rocks in the middle there.

That can also be a foreground element.

So in this little circle, I don't know how long I'm gonna be here, but believe me, I'm probably gonna do a 180 around this whole halfway around this thing, because I think there's so many shots here.

- All right, just an update to that house, I've walked around, I got that shot earlier and I liked it, but now, I've come down to the waterfall, I've been shooting the waterfall, and as we've said so many times, Paul and I look around.

Don't just get hyper-focused on what you think the shot is.

And I noticed the house again.

Obviously, the angle's changed, where the water is coming past it has changed based on the movement that I've done, but now, I've introduced this rushing, glacier blue water in the foreground and I might actually like it more than my earlier shot, so you all be the judge.

Let me know which one of these you like the most.

(shutter clicking) (bright ambient music) (shutter clicking) (shutter clicking) - Iceland has a lot of geothermal energy.

(rain pattering) About 90% of Icelandic houses are heated with geothermal heat.

The heat is because of (lava roaring) the tectonic activity, the tectonic plates' movement, and we have a hot spot, and a lot of magma underneath.

The power plant here uses hot steam to generate electricity, and then we use the hot water that flows by gravity down to Reykjavik and heats up all the houses.

We also heat up streets, the driveway of my house.

The outside my house is heated by geothermal heat.

(soft guitar music) (singer vocalizing) (shutter clicking) Come along with me It's a light (shutter clicking) On your shoulder All the things you'll see Going back to your home Try to go my way Leave this moment Leave this moment - So Ragnar has taken us to this really beautiful area that is full of this plush, thick moss.

You can see how much it gives when you step on it, (foot whooshing) and it's covering everything, all of these old, volcanic rocks from an eruption many, many centuries ago, and it's just the sea of boulders and rocks.

- I wanna show a little bit of a dreamy effect with the moss that's down here.

I've never experienced anything like this before, I've never walked on anything like this before.

I mean, it's like, cushiony.

So I wanna try to give you guys an idea of what we're looking at here, but I wanna present this in a better fashion than what I see here.

So what I'm gonna do is add a little motion to this shot.

So basically, what I'm gonna do is a technique called dragging my shutter.

So I'm gonna have my shutter at 1/50, 1/40, maybe 1/80 of a second, which is a little bit longer than normal for a regular shot, because I wanna show the motion.

And what I'm doing is I'm waiting for some interesting vehicles to travel up the top there on the road, (vehicles whooshing) and what I'm gonna do is keep my focus locked on one of those vehicles, (screen beeping) and I'm just gonna track them right along this road.

And what it's gonna do is it's gonna keep the car or the vehicle in focus, (screen beeping) really sharp, and the sky, the nice blue and white contrast between the sky and the clouds, it's gonna be all dreamy.

This little, green valley down here, the moss that we found, it's gonna be all dreamy.

- This is kind of a different type of photography that I like to do, because a lot of times, you pull up to a scene, and it's obvious what the shot is.

Here, when you pull up, it's not obvious at all, and so that's what I'm walking around, trying to find right now.

I don't know if I'll be successful or not, but Paul and I are both seeing what we can come away with.

(shutter clicking) (soft guitar music) Let's get up on them toes (shutter clicking) 'Cause you got Destiny Destiny Going round town and you spread the word around About the place to be Place to be - So this is a complete wow moment.

When we drove in on the road, and we saw this massive glacier, multiple thousands of years old, lit by the sun with this huge, snow-capped mountain next to it.

And the way it just kind of comes down and leads the eye, it's really, really special, and I've never had the opportunity to photograph something like this before, so I am trying to capitalize on it as best I can.

Of course, we did some drone work, because it just gives such an incredible perspective, and we needed video content, too, but to be honest, a shot I really like is what I'm getting right now.

I'm getting a very simple reflection of that mountain right there that has been playing peekaboo for the past 20 to 30 minutes and is finally out.

And so I finally have a nice open view of it, and I'm getting the reflection of it in this glacial pond down here below that actually has a little bit of color around it.

And I think that balance, and that harmony, and that symmetry really makes the shot interesting.

- Okay, so we got this big, grand scene, that big mountain in front of us, and then the glacier on the side.

I played around with the drone for a little bit, and the drone has its advantages.

I mean, you can move around with the drone, and you don't have to use your leg power.

And you can sometimes get into positions that you can't with your legs.

That's the advantage of the drone, but I wasn't really getting the shot that I wanted.

Just structurally, it just wasn't working for me.

So I decided to just use my leg power and walk around here a bit, and just see what kind of different compositions I can get.

- So yes, the drone shots are striking, because you can fly out right over the glacier, but I still love, my heart is still in traditional photography.

I really like this frame that I've gotten.

What an amazing location this is.

Going round town (shutter clicking) And you spread the word around About the place to be Place to be (shutter clicking) (soft guitar music) Running on the line With a piece Of pinewood pie (shutter clicking) Is a sight to see Sight to see (singer vocalizing) Destiny (shutter clicking) Won't you be my friend (soft music continues) (singer vocalizing) - [Chris] What's up, man?

- [Paul] Hey, man.

- Ah, what a country.

- Unbelievable.

- What a country.

- Unbelievable.

- [Chris] We just had a lot of adventures.

- [Paul] Some dangerous adventures.

(chuckles) Exciting adventures.

- Yeah, quasi-dangerous adventures.

(Paul laughing) Got the heart pounding.

(dog barking) - For me, I would say that this country lived up to the hype.

Everything I read, everything I saw online, it was totally in line with what I experienced here.

The photography was out of this world.

I mean, it was like, every corner we turned, there was another shot to be taken.

Is there one that stands out for you that you feel like this was it?

- It's really hard to say, 'cause it was all so good.

I mean, our time in the Highlands was really, really memorable, (Paul grunting) and I think I got some shots there that I don't have anything even remotely like it in my portfolio, but I could say that about Diamond Beach, too.

- [Paul] I was gonna say the same thing, yeah.

- I mean, there's little icebergs just washing up at our feet, waiting to be photographed.

I mean, are you kidding me?

- If I had to choose one spot that I would say was my favorite, even though all of them were, like, really great, it would probably be Diamond Beach, and for the reasons you said.

I mean, I don't think that that's anything I'm gonna experience ever again.

- We just scratched the surface.

We did not do the whole country.

(Paul laughing) We didn't do anywhere close to the whole country.

- And you know we're gonna get viewers that are gonna say that.

(sheep braying) - Oh yeah, of course.

- You know, "Why didn't you go here, why didn't you go there?"

- We could literally do an entire season dedicated to Iceland.

It would all be incredible, and we still wouldn't get it all.

I think we got some great images, we had some great adventures, we ate some great food, and we're gonna have some great stories to tell.

- So Chris, what's next?

- Man, it is gonna be good.

(bright folk music) Hollows in the woods Hollows in the woods Call out Call out Trails up mountains climb Trails up mountains climb Waves and sand Waves and sand Keep beat and time Keep beat and time Mossy blankets Mossy blankets Swirling streams Swirling streams Over rocks and dirt Over rocks and dirt Run at pace Run at pace With all the earth With all the earth (bright folk music continues) (bright folk music continues) (bright folk music intensifies) Oh we wander chasing light Oh we wander chasing light (bright folk music continues) So we wander chasing light (bright folk music softens) (soft bright music) - [Announcer] SIGMA is proud to support photographers and filmmakers around the world, and we believe creativity and sustainability go hand in hand.

(water whooshing) (birds calling) (bright ambient music) (screen whooshing) - [Announcer] Mpix is a proud supporter of "View Finders."

From our materials to our American photo labs, (photo thudding) we believe your adventures (tape tearing) are worth celebrating.

Mpix, print what matters most.

- [Announcer] Support is provided by Visit Oconee, home of "View Finders" with historic landmarks, parks, and year-round events.

Learn more at visitoconee.com.

- [Announcer] Troncalli Subaru is a proud sponsor of "View Finders."

(bright music)