The day I won a National Geographic Award
It was around 3am on the 6th January, I was happily sleeping when my girlfriend Elitsa abruptly woke up telling me that the northern lights were ‘possibly’ visible. We were staying in Hofn, a lovely village on the South East corner of Iceland, but as lovely as it is we were next to a petrol station on a main road. Plus, this was several days into our trip and we had seen the northern lights a few times, so safe to say I was reluctant to get up. But get up we did.
Earlier that the day we went to Vestrahorn and spent some time there photographing it and exploring, it’s a stunning mountain right in front of black sand dunes and on the coast too. You have to pay to drive your car down to Vestrahorn, and you can only pay for it at the cafe, which is not open after dark. In my wisdom though, I bought another ticket for the barrier just in case we wanted to come back at night. Here’s just a few images from that morning.
Here’s a few from that morning.
The Journey Down.
‘Well, if we are going out at 3 in the morning lets just do it properly’ was my thought, so we headed back to Vestrahorn. It’s 20 minutes from Hofn so a really short drive, but the road once you turn off the main route 1 is rough and bumpy. I reached into my pocket as we got to the barrier and thank our lucky starts that it worked as planned, up went the barrier and we headed down the black sand road to the last parking spots right in front of the beach.
On the drive down, our eyes has not adjusted and there was definitely no sign of northern lights as far as we could tell, but as we stopped and got out of the car, Elitsa’s shriek of excitement was all I needed to know. I was about the see, and photograph something that I had dreamt about for a long time. Not only the Aurora, but a large chunk of the milky way was also right in the centre of the scene, pretty rare to get the two I have later learned.
You could barely see the mountain, just the faintest outline and it was impossible to line up the shot first time. My 20mm F1.8 was literally just wide enough to fit this iconic scene in. After a few long exposures I got everything set up and Elitsa went to stand on the sand dune just in front of the scene.
Between the howling winds and the waves she just about heard me shouting ’Hold still, 30 seconds’. The head torch we bought earlier in the day for a small fortune worked like a charm, illuminating the frozen dunes around her and creating a hazy light in-front. It looked great already on the back of the camera, and I knew I could make it something pretty special when I got my hands on it in Lightroom and Photoshop. Only adding to this, as I was busy taking more photos, she was talking to her nan in Bulgaria (they’re a few hours ahead of Iceland) and describing what she was seeing, a really special moment. At this point we did stop with the photos too, to just sit and take it all in. Something that I often forget to do is appreciate where you are and what you are seeing without feeling like you have to capture it.
The Competition.
Elitsa was to thank for getting us both up for that amazing night, and she was also to thank for sending me the details of the competition that she came across by chance online. I had not seen it myself and 100% would not have entered this without her telling me about it several times, both by message and as a verbal reminder.
When she said it was a competition by National Geographic Traveller I was intrigued, but admittedly didn’t hold out a lot of hope, as the standard on there is extremely high. As the competition’s entry deadline drew near I still had not entered, and Elitsa was not happy about that. She sent me the link again and I entered.
Several months later, and having completely forgotten about the competition I received an email asking for some more information about the image and the details of where and when it was taken. Just to be considered filled me with excitement.
A month or so later, I was boarding a plane to Milan with one of my best friends. We were both heading to a friends wedding, when I an email came through confirming that I had actually WON won the Landscape Category. Actually seeing my photo and my little story in on the National Geographic website was such great feeling, and still is.
And here is that picture.
