Behind The Image: Coexistence
About The Series
What makes a great image? Well, you might have the perfect composition, you might have the perfect light, you might even capture the perfect moment - but sometimes, luck works in mysterious ways to take your image just one step further than what you could have imagined. There's no single recipe to make a memorable image, multiple smaller things contribute to one picture. Behind the photo is my attempt at sharing the story behind some of my favourite images, taking you to the day when the image is captured.
This series is inspired by one of my favorite photographers Paul Zizka. This is the first of many images that are going to appear in the series.
It was early October in 2019, and I was done with 30% of my road trip in Iceland. We started a little late and had a moderate drive from Vik to Höfn that day. It started as a sunny day but after a couple of hours, it went overcast and started drizzling. I had already researched and selected my spots for the day from where I was going to fly my drone. The mountain of Lomangnupur was one of them. Iceland is a country so beautiful that they had to make ample parking spots so that nobody stops in the middle of the road to take photos. We were looking for one while approaching Lómagnúpur and soon after we crossed this mountain, we found one and pulled over.
My initial goal was to capture this beautiful mountain and I immediately sent my drone up for that. The drone was more than a kilometre away from my desired spot, and I suddenly noticed this glacial river flowing by with incredibly blue water. I have taken multiple aerial pictures of Icelandic rivers before this moment but I have never seen a river so rich in colour. There were so many contrasting colours in the frame and I had a sense that this could potentially result in a good image, if I can balance my composition.
Image: Coexistence - A winner of 18 international awards
In the next five minutes, I tried at least 25 different compositions which did not really work out, before I made this one. The previous pictures never really saw the light of the day, but they had an immense impact in creating the final image. I went for a top-down shot because It looked abstract, and I did not want to involve too many colours in the image. I usually bracket my shots (take multiple exposures at one place) but for this one, I didn't need to. It was an overcast day already but the sun peeked through the clouds for a good five minutes, creating a strong shadow on the upper part of the image. The blue river looked magnificent in contrast to volcanic black sand, and everything worked out just perfectly at the moment. I only needed one thing, a subject.
I waited and waited for a car to pass through, and suddenly a bunch of them came along. I didn't want that, I wanted one single red car placed on top of the river, and I was getting none of it. Finally after a couple of minutes, I saw a car approaching with no other cars around, and I knew this was my chance. Seconds before it was on the right spot, I pressed my shutter, knowing the processing time my drone takes to take an image. It all worked out. I didn't get a red car but I was happy with the result.
After I ended up processing the final image, I was able to recover a lot of the colours. The blue glacial river and the green moss really popped in contrast to the black sand. If you look closely, you might even find an inverted green sword. I decided to name this image 'Coexistence' because in my opinion, this picture tells the story of how the natural world and the humans can coexist together to create abstract beauty.
After I ended up processing the final image, I was able to recover a lot of the colours. The blue glacial river and the green moss really popped in contrast to the black sand. If you look closely, you might even find an inverted green sword. I decided to name this image 'Coexistence' because in my opinion, this picture tells the story of how the natural world and the humans can coexist together to create abstract beauty.
When I shared the image for the first time online, it garnered huge attention. I received messages from people wanting to buy this image, and that's the very first time I realized that this image has the potential. It has made its way to multiple national and international exhibitions. It has also won the HIPA monthly Instagram contest in January 2020, and was a finalist at major international competitions like ROAM Awards, SkyPixel Aerial photo and video contest, Nature TTL Photographer of the Year contest. One of the users suggested in a forum that I should hang a giant print of this in my own studio. Since I don't have any studio at the moment, Coexistence made it to my wall as a giant 30x40 canvas wrapped print.
