We arrrived in Reykjavik early in the morning and decided to spend the day exploring the city and shopping for authentic handmade Iceland wool sweaters. Anastasia found a flea market and we got our sweaters much cheaper.  Bless Ukrainian frugalness. Her sweater had Ukrainian colors and a wool hat with Puffins on them became her uniform the rest of the trip. Next we stood in line for 30 minutes to sample the famous Iceland Hot Dogs. Both of our reviews were "Meh".  Not very good, Don't understand the hype. Then we toured a Nordic art museum....not our taste. Then we visited the famous church build in the 1930s with the walls resembling the columns of lava basalt rocks.  Amazing! We both loved the city and wished we had more time to explore. With the architecture, hills and ocean it reminded us both of San Francisco. 

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The next morning started with a helicopter tour of the latest volcano eruption. Unbeknownst to us, the eruption had ceased the day before our tour. But it was still cool to fly over the city and countryside and see the site of the current eruptions still smoldering, but no lava, and the crater from last year's eruption. In the afternoon we met the local creative, Icelandic Selkie for an afternoon of shooting with Icelandic Horses, with some unique rock formations on the largest lake in this part of Iceland and with a beached shipwreck.

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On our last day, we both enjoyed a whale watching tour for the first time.  It was lovely to be at sea on a sunny day.  I found it difficult to photograph the various sightings of the whales, but caught some cool images with my 200mm lens.  But think I captured more of my daring colleague who was at the lower level bow most of the time where the action was.  She captured some cool video of porpoises following the ship and a rainbow caused by the blow from a whale. We saw several types of whales throughout the morning.

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We had a sheer dress and top made entirely of strings of crystals that we had wanted to shoot on Diamond Beach amongst the little icebergs. With no little icebergs on the beach due to rain, no other location since then seemed appropriate for this more glam look. On our last full day we spotted blue water in a lava field near our base....a perfect spot for this more glamourous look.  Before our early morning flight the next morning, we hit the location as the sun rose around 5:30 am, The light gave Anastasia's skin a golden glow accentuated by the glistening crystals and blue water...PERFECTION!! We quickly completed the shoot and an hour later, we hugged our good bye's and this most epic creative adventure of my life was at an end.