Between Continents

Þingvellir sits in the rift where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates drift apart, a couple of centimetres every year. The long wall of lava in this frame is the edge of that rift, and the river Öxará drops over it as Öxarárfoss before running out across a field of boulders.

This was made on the seventh of September, at twenty to nine in the evening, with the camera low among the stones and a long exposure turning the river to mist around them.

Printed in monochrome, the scene becomes almost geological diagram: the wall, the single bright fall, and the round black stones — the oldest story in Iceland, told in silver.