Not Yet Muriel! - a photo on Flickriver

Not Yet Muriel!

            Most of the lone or abandoned buildings came as surprises, sudden appearances at the roadside, where you just had to hope for an area to pull in and grab your shot.  We found plenty of those along the way, managing to take pictures of some of them, while in the case of others we rolled past slowly, hopefully but unsuccessfully scouring the road ahead for a patch of earth to stop at, or mentally making notes for next time.  There’s one in Snæfellsnes, just a short stretch west of Kirkjufell that definitely isn’t getting away from me next time - whenever that happens to be.  I was also told that the Reykjanes peninsula was a particularly bounteous area for such subjects, although we weren’t there long enough to fully exploit its potential, despite finding one or two gems at Strandarkirkja on the last day.  

But this one was a known quantity, courtesy of the photography guide I’d purchased in advance of the trip.  Even the What Three Words location had been thoughtfully provided by the author so it was impossible to miss, lying in the flat lands to the west of Höfn.  You can’t do better than the What Three Words app to pinpoint your beauty spots in my experience.  It’s easy enough to find Vestrahorn on a map, but cartographers aren’t usually so forthcoming when you’re looking for a dilapidated building somewhere in the wilderness.  Strangely though, this one did appear on the online map I always refer to, with the giveaway description “farmhouse ruins,” leaving me in no doubt as to the nature of the landmark in question.  I duly flagged it for an easy grab shot at the side of the ring road when we’d be passing through.  

We stopped here not long after starting the long haul west to Vík on Day 10 of the adventure, happily finding a generous scrape of gravel to leave the car upon while we crossed the road to examine the subject at hand.  I suppose it must once have been the pride and joy of its owners, and a handsome looking one at that.  Even now it retained something of its former dignity, and once again I wondered whether the architect realised how appealingly they’d aligned the roof to mirror the mountains behind.  So often here it seems that buildings like this have been designed to fit into the surroundings, adding to rather than detracting from them.  For the purposes of research, I took my chances and went online to see whether the artistic daub on the front wall had a meaning.  “Sucker” if you were interested.  Well I suppose that’s what I get for looking.  

The best thing was that the building wasn’t abandoned at all.  Well maybe in the traditional sense of the word it was, but as you can see, there were a number of residents making the most of the calm conditions and soft late morning sunlight.  And as grazing livestock are wont to do, several of them were quick to notice the two strange looking newcomers on the other side of the fence by the road, and deploy the regulation careworn stare in our direction.  Maybe they found a can of spray paint and applied the graffiti themselves, just to tell us what they thought of photographers in general.  It’s nothing to what happened in Animal Farm after all.  Just looking at those pairs of eyes watching us unflinchingly was slightly unnerving, even though sheep aren’t generally known for baring their teeth and charging at humankind.  They just sit there gazing without intent as you point your long lens in their direction.  What really made me chuckle was the one in the lean to, which was very possibly a barn in the first place.  Perhaps she was the only one reading the script as she took shelter inside and gazed out at us, half hidden in the shadows.  Probably the ringleader, the others waiting for her signal to charge down any intruders.  “Not yet Muriel!  Wait until you see the whites of their eyes.”

It had been another one of those ten minute episodes that had delivered a pleasing outcome, just like “Connected” and “The Road to Lumpy Bumpy,” the latter of which came just a few hours later.  Although this one brought an added sense of comedy with the expressions on those woolly faces.  The road to Reykjavík is paved with photographic intentions, some of them fulfilled, yet so many more lie hidden in plain sight, waiting for one of us to spot them and say “I think I’ve just seen something.”  What it would be to spend countless months here, travelling ever so slowly across the land and absorbing every spartan mile.  And it seems that each of these stories yields further inspiration to return, revisit and rediscover the landscape in greater detail, a web of schemes crawling and spreading like arteries across the map.  And you never know when you might bump into a bunch of locals, staring stonily back in your direction, waiting for you to make a wrong move. 

“Ok Muriel, the one with the big red face is messing with my chi.  Lower your horns and do your worst!”

Taken in: Iceland / East / Brunnhol (show map)

Taken on: September 17, 2022

Tags:

Iceland

abandoned

farm

sheep

animals

livestock

Mountain

mountains

Hofn

Soker

ruin

wild

wilderness

Canon

Island

outdoor

landscape

landscape photography « less

Sets appears in: • Around Hofn • Iceland 2022

Groups appears in: • Iceland. • Iceland - Landscape more » • Flickr Social Club • Photography Week • Amateur Photographer Magazine • Flickr Social « less

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