Driving through the countryside of Iceland is a time warp to a land before time.

The landscape is rough and barren. Its moss covered lava fields and tall sloping mountains have an almost lunar appearance.

This is 66 degrees north.  The home of seals and poets.

A few years ago, we produced a multimedia piece on Australia for the launch of the Nikon D3s and rolling through the southwest Iceland felt so much like our time in Tasmania.

Bill and I were lucky to be escorted through the Snæfellsnes peninsula of Iceland on Sunday by our new friend Raymond Hoffmann.

He works with Dionys Moser, a Swiss photographer who is famous for his landscape work.

We will be joining them on some tours in the near future — a diverse selection of locations from the north of Norway for the Northern Lights to the White Desert of Egypt to the Blues country of the Mississippi Delta.  We will have dates and descriptions posted on our blog and their Web sites soon.
Raymond was born in Germany, but moved to Iceland after meeting his wife – a native Icelander – on a trip to the island 10 years ago.
He took us to spots the guide books never mention. A black rock beach, a cozy ocean front hotel for a gourmet lunch — lost on Bill, but much appreciated by me — and small waterfalls overlooking a breathtaking backdrop of Church Mountain.

We started the day with coffee and croissants with his wife and 2-year-old daughter.  Along with spending hours talking with photographers at a lunch graciously arranged by Baldvin Einarsson, this was easily the highlight of our trip.  As much as we love taking pictures, spending time with people and making new friends is the best part of our existence.

Baldvin runs a professional camera store in Reykajavik.  A really professional camera store.  It was a another step back in time for us. Along with our friends at the Camera Store in Calgary, and Light and Byte in Zurich, Becco is a wonderful throwback to when service mattered most.  It’s just a different way to shop, and learn.

We’re lucky because we have Jeff Snyder and Annie Cahill at Adorama in NYC who are long time friends and colleagues. We can’t drop in often and hang out with them — it’s a bit of a commute –but they give great small town service with huge national resources.

The weather Sunday was perhaps less than desirable for most tourists but, as Raymond pointed out, typically Icelandic. The temperature wavered between 0 and -2 degrees Celsius, and the wind was a blustery 30 meters per second, which translates to just over 60 miles per hour.
We spent the day driving along the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, unable to see the famous Snæfellsjökull volcanic glacier due to clouds, but enjoying the scenery nonetheless.  We stopped to watch a family of Icelandic ponies graze in a rocky field. We made pictures of a small church in the center of a lava field. Raymond took us to the famous beach at Búðir where we watched snow fall on its one-of-a-kind round, black rocks, a jarring yet phenomenal scene.

We ended the tour in a small fishing town where we warmed up with a bowl of homemade vegetable cream soup before driving back to Reykjavik. As the sun set behind a wall of clouds, rays of light escaped, allowing us to make the last of our Icelandic photos.

Maybe we’ll make it back there someday.  There is still so much more to see and do.

This is one place I’d like to get back to on a sunny day.  It’s called Gullfols, or Golden Falls, and pictures from there are spectacular when the weather is nice.  I shot this using the 8mm app on my iPhone just for fun, trying to make light of a dark day.

But there is a lot of work to be done this weekend at the Preakness Stakes so after a quick stop in Norway, home we go.

Five cities.  Five countries. Five days.

Crisscrossed Scandinavia this week talking photography to groups in Estonia, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden as part of the Nikon Nordic Tour.

It was an ambitious schedule, but the Nikon Nordic team was on top of everything.

Joe McNally‘s flight was late.  He flew from DC to NYC to Prague and into Tallinn — overnight.  He landed, sans luggage, and came immediately to the Museum of Art and gave a perfect speech to a  full house.  He never missed a beat — total respect.

Joe over Finland.

It’s a real pleasure working with Joe.  We’ve been friends for a long time . Not only is he a terrific colleague, wonderful photographer, and excellent teacher, but even better, he is flat out fun to be around.

Joe in Oslo.

We had tremendous audiences at every stop.

I can be pretty talkative. It may come from growing up in a small Nebraska town, where I was happy to find anyone to talk to… So many of our stops were exceptional. In Tallinn, I was onstage an extra hour.

Peter Brodin kept giving me the “stretch” sign, which of course I loved.  The audience was engaged and challenging me, which just solidifies how much I love teaching — thanks Mom.

Our venue in Copenhagen, the Royal Library.

Responsive, invigorated crowds were capped by a standing room only crowd in Stockholm at Fotografiska — one of my favorite galleries in the world.

I’m so thankful to everyone who came out. This tour was a great chance for me to learn from some very talented folks.

Me, Peter Brodin, and Joe McNally.

I rolled onto the plane this morning more in love with photography than ever.

Time to make some images.

We are very excited to announce Bill’s new interview for Nikon Professional Services. Now online, Bill talks about how he approaches each shoot and what inspires him.  Check it out today on the NPS Web site.

I am frequently asked which are my favorite teams in sports and who I want to win.

It’s pretty simple really. I pull for the people who are nice to me.

Last night in Indianapolis, there were a couple of players on the field I have spent time with through the years.

Danny Woodhead of the Patriots, and Eli Manning from the victorious New York football Giants.

When Danny was a senior at tiny Chadron State College in western Nebraska, Laura and I spent two great days working with him as he closed in on the NCAA career rushing record.

He was friendly and generous with his time. And especially since he is from a small town in Nebraska, like me, I always hope he does well.

But it was a little more complicated last night. Eli Manning, the youngest member of sports most gracious family, I photographed before he was a teenager.

We weren’t doing a story on Eli, it was a piece on Archie, his dad, hero of Mississippi.

Then I photographed Eli again when we were doing a piece on his older brother Peyton.

I went to school at Ole Miss, and so when Eli was the star there, Steve Fine, SI’s director of photography, sent me to Oxford to make portraits and shoo game action of Eli there.

I photographed him again when he was a first round draft pick.

Yet again at the family football camp – the Manning passing academy.

Another time for a story on his brother Cooper.

Each and every time Eli has been the same. Quiet, polite, and — it hurts to be old enough to say this about a man who has now twice been Super Bowl MVP — a really good kid.

Sports Illustrated’s best images of Super Bowl XLVI gallery is now online.

This past week, Bill answered some questions for photographer Frédéric Bernard-Payen about the Nikon D4 for an exclusive interview on his blog.

Check out the complete interview online.