Iceland 2025: a journey through changing landscapes

Jon Atkinson

12 minutes ago

3 min read

Iceland · April 2025

A campervan, a camera and a landscape that kept changing. Looking back through the photographs from Iceland, that is the thread running through the journey.

There are waterfalls, black-sand beaches and ice in the lagoon. There is Vestrahorn in the evening light, and the Northern Lights above the van. Further into the trip, snow takes over the roads and hills before the views open out again towards the west.

The photographs hold those places separately. Put them together, and the changes between them become just as much a part of the story.

Waterfalls, black sand and ice

The early part of the journey took in the Golden Circle and the south coast. Geothermal ground and waterfalls gave way to the coast, with Skógafoss, Dyrhólaey and Reynisdrangar among the places in the photographic record.

Those views have quite different shapes. At Skógafoss, the water fills the frame. Along the coast, the eye follows the dark ground and the line of the sea. Looking through the pictures now, the changes in scale are striking: a whole landscape in one frame, then a much smaller detail in the next.

At Jökulsárlón, the ice adds another set of shapes. The lagoon photographs are followed by fragments on Diamond Beach, with the black shore behind them. It is a useful sequence to return to slowly. The wider view gives a sense of the place; the closer photographs make room for the texture and edges of the ice.

Vestrahorn, from daylight to night

Vestrahorn gives the story a natural pause. The mountain appears in daylight and in the later light, before the photographs move into the night sky.

The Northern Lights above the campervan are one of the clearest images connecting the place with the journey. There is the sky and the mountain, but also the small space I was travelling and sleeping in.

In a landscape photograph, the van provides a familiar scale. Here it also makes the picture personal. This is a record of being there in April 2025, with the van part of the scene.

The film returns to that night too, using both a photograph and moving footage of the aurora at Vestrahorn. They show different aspects of the same part of the trip: a composed view to look at, and movement to spend a little time with.

Back on the road

The journey continued through the east and towards the north, with snowy passes and fjords changing the appearance of the road.

In those images, the route itself becomes a strong line through the landscape. There are winding sections, open white ground and the van within the wider view. Goðafoss appears in snow as well. These are April photographs, but winter is still very much present in this part of the record.

Further west, the selection moves into more open valleys and on towards Snæfellsnes. The photographs include Hraunfossar and Kirkjufell, followed by volcanic terrain on Reykjanes near the end of the trip. The journey has moved through several very different settings by that point.

The space between the views

The campervan links the photographs throughout: out on the road, beside a landscape and in the smaller interior details.

It was transport, a kitchen and somewhere to sleep. Keeping those parts of the trip in the story helps connect the big views. A journey includes the drive to the next place and the ordinary business of travelling as well as the photograph taken when you arrive.

I have brought that sequence together in a film of just over five minutes. It follows the landscape, the changing weather and the road between the places, with photographs alongside moving footage.

Watch the Iceland film below, then browse the photographs from the journey.