For two weeks in October, French photographer Michel Rajkovic visited Iceland, looking to shoot not just its beautiful landscapes but to capture something intangible. “There’s something magical about Iceland,” he tells us. “The light, the waterfalls, the rocks, the lava fields…I wanted to show what I felt in that country. I hope people will see something behind these images, it’s not only rocks and waterfalls, it’s the emotions.
“Most of the time he worked alone, isolated, concentrating on taking the best possible pictures he could. For fifteen days he slept in his car because he didn’t want to lose any time driving, he needed to capture the best light possible which, as all photographers know, is in the early mornings and evenings. “I need to empty my brain to concentrate, I need to be as close as possible from the subject I want to photograph and I need to stay many hours at the same place to get the right light.”
Rakjovic’s photos invite us to stand under Iceland’s beautiful waterfalls or look out into the calm waters of a never ending ocean. By shooting in RAW format and then converting his files to black-and-white, he asks us to pay attention not to color but to find the drama in his careful composition, his perspective and focus.
Notice he’s also using long exposure to blur moving water, making it appear milky and smooth or rough and piercing. Like Mitch Dobrowner’s storm photos, love how there’s a fine art quality to these shots.
When I asked the photographer what his secret was to getting such dramatic photography, here is what he shared: “The secret is this: the light and the time we have to devote to it.”