Journey 01 · Iceland
Four Batteries Over the Highlands
Iceland's interior, mostly from above
Published 29 Aug 2025 · Travelled 14–23 Jul 2025
- 9 moments
- 10 days
- 245 km
- Summer
- Iceland
- phone · f/1.8 · 1/2400
- 63.9300° N, 19.2200° W
- F208 toward Landmannalaugar
- 11:20
- 9°C, 14 m/s gusts
Tarmac ends, and the map starts using words like 'unbridged'. We aired down the tyres and climbed into cloud shadow, the track winding between green shoulders of mountain. Phone shot through the windscreen because the wind was 14 m/s and the drone stayed in its case, sulking.
- 24mm · f/5.6 · 1/240 · ISO 100
- 63.5500° N, 19.3500° W
- Markarfljót outwash
- 14:05
- 11°C, 4 m/s, workable
First calm window, 4 m/s, and I sent the Mavic up over the glacial outwash. On the screen the river braided into silver traces on black sand and Arjun stopped talking about lunch. Two batteries went into this one view. Zero regret, some hunger.
home point set, altitude 110 m, hands finally warm
- Landmannalaugar camp
- 08:00
Forty-one flights attempted over nine days. Thirteen scrubbed on the pad by the anemometer app, which does not negotiate, and neither does a 900-gram aircraft in a 17 m/s gust.
- 24mm · f/5.6 · 1/320 · ISO 100
- 63.9920° N, 19.0510° W
- Landmannalaugar
- 09:40
- 10°C, 6 m/s, brightening
Landmannalaugar's hills come in colours sandstone would call showing off: rust, mustard, sage, ash. From altitude the hiking trail is a pencil line and the people are commas. Flew one slow orbit and brought it home at 31 percent, which Arjun logged as 'reckless' in the notebook.
- 24mm · f/4 · 1/500 · ISO 100
- 63.6500° N, 19.4000° W
- Glacier river, southern highlands
- 16:30
- 8°C, 5 m/s
Top-down over a glacier river, gimbal at minus ninety, the white water splitting around black bars of sand. This is the frame ground photographers cannot make and the reason I carry spare props in my jacket pocket like other men carry cigarettes.
- phone · f/1.8 · 1/1600
- 63.7800° N, 19.1000° W
- River crossing, F208 south
- 12:50
- 9°C, drizzle
Every crossing has a ritual: walk it first, pick the line, commit slow. A Land Cruiser went through ahead of us pushing a bow wave like a small ship. Arjun filmed me filming them. Nobody drowned an engine, which in the highlands counts as friendship.
07 · Wind log, day six
- Moving image
- Háifoss
- 18:45
- 10°C, 6 m/s in the gorge
Háifoss · 18:45
The river walks off the plateau mid-sentence and becomes weather on the way down. I kept the drone wide and let the fall do the moving; some subjects want a tripod in the sky and nothing clever. The gorge threw the drone around on the return leg and I earned every percent of that landing.
- Sigöldugljúfur
- 20:40
- 7°C, 2 m/s, golden
- Last frame
Last evening, last battery, a canyon where springwater runs turquoise under moss walls. I flew it low and slow, one pass, line of sight the whole way because the light was too good to share with a screen. Landed at 12 percent with the highlands in the logbook and sand from home still in the case.
- 24mm · f/4 · 1/200 · ISO 100
- 64.1600° N, 19.1400° W
The route
9 stops
Journey completed
Ten days, nine stories
- Frames exposed
- 3400
- Flights logged
- 41
- Flights aborted for wind
- 13
- Strongest gust survived
- 17 m/s
- Favourite moment
- The braided river opening below the drone like circuitry, and Arjun going quiet mid-sentence
- Best food
- Lamb soup at the Landmannalaugar mountain mall, refilled once for free
