Last Sunday my trip to the Faroe islands was cut short. I arrived on Thursday, four days ahead of the workshop group, to both reacquaint myself with familiar locations and seek out new ones. I often do this as you can never have too many places to visit in your pocket and it also gives me the opportunity to work alone, something which has become increasingly rare these days.
Corvid-19 was just beginning to find its way into Britain. Flights were still operating on a relatively normal level and there were no restrictions preventing either myself or the group flying to Copenhagen and onwards to the Faroes. Arriving early afternoon I picked up the car and began my 50-mile trip to a beautiful village on the very north tip.
The Faroes is pretty much always windy - and wet. Fortunately, however, although the wind was very much in evidence it stayed dry with periods of glorious sunshine - but still very windy!
I didn't know quite what to expect, weather-wise, at this time of the year. It's not a country of extremes and, surprisingly, given its northern location, its winters are relatively mild and its summer's, cool. When I visited in June it was 11 degrees day and night. It has many mountains so you expect snow on the higher elevations but this year they had more than usual, and for longer, and some of the passes were blocked off requiring me to do a nervy 400 metre reverse down a hill.
Because of my numerous stops I didn't arrive until quite late and so once settled in I had a pleasant evening meal in the pretty much empty guesthouse restaurant (they'd had numerous cancellations) and then wandered down to the harbour guided by my headlamp. Having visited previously I knew my way around and enjoyed standing on the slipway in the dusky blue light listening to the sound of waves crashing against the nearby mountain and boulders. I'll come back at dawn, I thought.
I woke up to the sight of a light dusting of snow covering the landscape. Perfect.
There's an excellent vantage point that gives you wonderful views across the village and coast. With my 18-35mm I just managed to keep the scene within the frame.
My Samsung Galaxy S9+ in upright panorama mode, however, did a much better job!
Mobile phone aside, as this was a landscape photography trip I was able to keep camera equipment down to a minimum. Two bodies (a D850 and D810) and just two lenses - an 18-35mm and an 80-400mm. You might be wondering why I hadn't a third to bridge the gap between the two. I do have a 24-120 but given its size and weight, and that I was most likely just to use the other two, anyway, I decided to leave it at home. I took a full complement of Lee Filters (NDs, ND grads and polariser), Acratech Levelling Base (beautifully engineered. Had it for more than 10 years. Perfect for panoramas. The best there is!), two remote releases (incase I lose one), drying cloth and Storm Jacket camera cover. This was packed into the superb Think Tank 26L Backlight. See my review, here. My tripod is the now-discontinued Manfrotto 055 carbon fibre. Not the new model with the boom-arm (I hate these!) but the older model where the legs go completely flat without you having to fiddle with the centre column. Why reinvent the wheel? I have three of these - just incase - in storage.
Nikon D850, 18-35mm @18mm, ISO 50, 20 secs. f/14, Lee Filters Little Stopper.
There is no denying how handy zoom lenses are but as with the image below it is so darn speculative as to where you focus in order to achieve front to back sharpness. With my lovely primes, I simply set them to their hyperfocal and away I go. No second guesses. However, and this is the plus side of zooms, in countries like the Faroes or Iceland where you're likely to encounter extreme weather (understatement!) the ease in which you can compose your image makes them preferable, in my opinion, to primes. Given the choice, if I could, I would always use the latter. They're sharper, more robust and easier to achieve maximum depth of field. But, we can't always have what we wantNearby was a viewpoint that on previous occasions I hadn't been able to access due to stormy conditions but I was determined on this trip to find and photograph from it.
The snow was fresh and crisp and the sun was shining. It felt a million miles away from what was happening around the globe.
I was elated! The scene that unfolded as I stepped closer to the edge was simply stunning and the fact that I was completely alone made it all the more special. How lucky I was, I felt.
Above: Nikon D850, 80-400mm @ 80mm, ISO 160, 1/250th sec. f/13, Lee Filters Medium Edge 0.9 ND grad.
The weather began to close in and not wanting to push my luck headed back to the car. Sure enough, before long, a blizzard engulfed me.
Later that day, and forty-five minutes from where I was staying, lay a beautiful long beach with an amazing headland and sea-stacks.
I hadn't looked at the news all day for the Faroes, not being part of the EU, aren't included in my mobile phone plan. Later that evening, as I read the news, I knew that my time on these islands was going to be short-lived and was confirmed when I received word from my group that Denmark was going to close its borders in the next few days. They couldn't enter but I could still leave Denmark, I thought, whenever I pleased, and pondered on the idea of staying on a few more days. I was hearing conflicting reports and since I was due to check out of the guest house the following day to stay into another in the south I reasoned that the best thing was to go straight to Vagar airport and hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak, as, unsurprisingly, I couldn't get hold of anyone on the phone. I still had another morning, at least, and duly arrived back at the same viewpoint.
Above: Nikon D850, 18-35mm @ 20mm, ISO 100, 82 secs. f/13, Lee Filters 0.9 Medium Edge ND grad, Lee Filters Big Stopper
A 7-image upright panorama, using the Acratech Leveling Base
I checked out and headed straight down to the airport which, for all intense and purposes, looked shut! There were notices on the entrance - in Faroese(!) - and so walked to the car rental building which, thankfully, had somebody inside. The only person. The shutters were three-quarters of the way down and with me kneeling, looking up, I had a conversation with a rental representative. It was very strange. She gave me two telephone numbers. I called one and was told that the airport is open but that they are only opening the doors during check-in. OK, well that's good. I left for my new hotel and on the way stopped at a service station to grab a bite to eat. While the young lady was toasting my sandwich we discussed the situation and she informed me that Vagar airport is expected to shut down completely in two days' time and possibly Copenhagen the day after! My eyes widened, as you can imagine. I ate my sandwich (priorities), reluctantly switched on the data on my mobile (this was going to be expensive) and booked a return flight for the following day. It was done. After just three days, I was going home. But, in all honesty, and given how it was unfolding, I was relieved to be.
That evening I wandered down to Torshavn's (the capital of the Faroes) harbour and caught the last rays of the day on the colorful boats and buildings.
I was sad to leave but I know that one day I'd return albeit in the current climate that could be some way off, yet. More than anything, I felt incredibly sorry for those that had been looking forward to this trip for so long. One day - hopefully.
