for months i've been planning this trip to the highlands of iceland and
here are my favorite locations for hiking photography and filmmaking
okay now we are at high efforts and i was not planning on covering this location this waterfall
originally in this video but it is so beautiful and photogenic that i have to talk to you about it
it is with 122 meters four meters higher than hanging force and therefore also in
the top three of highest waterfalls in iceland it is just north of la malaga
and you can park right up there just walk for three four minutes and you are right
there there are two spots main spots i would say maybe you see the people in the background there
uh i think actually that one is great to see both high force and its smaller sibling
boom and there's another smaller sibling boom i don't know what they're called that's obviously
and then you could shoot also from here actually if you're lucky with the sunlight and uh the
position you can also see a beautiful rainbow um i'm shooting with a mixture of white lenses
and a zoom so 11 to 20 as well as the 70 to 200 to get some detail shots um with a wide angle you are
able to get the two main waterfalls in the canyon in here um so definitely worth going out here
it's not much of a drive you should check it out if you have the chance to cool
all right now we're at a place that uh despite my extensive research about the
best locations in the highlands didn't even get on my radar until i actually met
julian who's currently filming who i met at the volcano remember the times when
i crashed a drone into volcano that day i met him but he was showing me photos of this place
launcher or something like that and it's it's an absolutely staggering like mind-blowing
place um that is really defined by these lakes that stretch through this valley here we just
saw a magnificent sunset here and you want to get up to an elevated point to enjoy this vista here
there's a campground down there where you can just like park and overnight
and the way to get here is actually through this valley here and it takes
about two and a half hours from road one the ring road to get here on gravel roads
and you have to go through two bigger-ish rivers so always be careful check the water levels
um that's very important but once you get there it's very like we have a very calm day today
it's like there's zero wind basically which is amazing and very uncommon for iceland frankly
now we actually have these clouds coming in over from the ocean
it's a little bit off the beaten path so you actually don't see that many people
but that's why we're going into the highlands right all right let's go to the next location
all right the next location that i'm really excited about
is stu laguil and there's tons of flies around so you have to wear one of these silly nets because
they don't bite they don't sting they just sit on your your eyeballs if you let them so always
good idea to bring one of those in summer but sulagil is this canyon that has these
basalt counts on both sides and bluish water running through it it's beautiful i've seen
so many gorgeous photos so i want to check it out myself and you have two ways to get there
actually like first you take off road number one if you come from igesta deal you just take the 923
and then head south west at some point you come across a sign that says turns left and
says stuttlegill that takes you to a parking lot right at the bridge for this river here
now if you don't have a 4x4 wheel drive you don't really want to necessarily trash your car or go
over the bumpy road i recommend parking there it's possibly a 50 minute hike from there there's also
the option to drive further down on this kind of road here and get to another parking lot
from there the hike is only 25 minutes but then on the other side of the canyon they just built a new
like viewing platform that gets you just like this is like a minor two minute three minute
hike from there it doesn't get you into the canyon but gives you a little bit of an overview from the
other side so these are your two options now for the best composition you actually want to climb
down these basil columns here it's not that tricky unless you carry 30 pounds of a backpack with you
but i have this low point here you can shoot into the canyon especially if you have nice clouds it
gives a little bit more depth and texture as well but this is where you need it i don't know if you
see it but there's tons of flies all around me and also in front of the camera i have no no solution
for that so you see um these little flies zipping in front of the lens all the time but i think it's
also a great location to fly through with the drone especially an fpv drone zipping through
the canyon like anakin skywalker in a pot racer that's up next but guess who forgot his props in
the car so what i'm gonna do is go back and then fly from there the light is not in my favor either
but maybe later on we will have some sunset popping so that may be actually better let's see
well
oh boy now if you're wondering why on earth there are never people around me when i'm shooting it's
because i'm shooting either in the wee morning hours like right now or late at night and it
has two benefits hey there's no people near france great and b uh you have the best light
in summer in iceland you have this perpetual sunrise and sunset
from you know 9 p.m through 5 a.m 6 a.m what we have right now and can really benefit
from less people and the most beautiful life so adjust your sleeping schedule
all right now we are at havera villa villa all right so now we are at havera villa which is
literally in the middle of iceland it's actually a place i've been to seven years
ago specifically for this blue pond and now you may ask yourself well it's not blue anymore
i don't know what happened but i took a photo back then and was the only highland location i
went to on my first trip because it is fairly accessible
if you have a 4x4 van you don't need to cross any rivers the f-35 gets you here and it's one
of the streets highland street just opens the earliest in the season in around early mid-june
and this geothermal hotspot where the eurasian and american plates are diverging is a very mysterious
location because every time i've been here twice it's always overcast and cloudy and i actually
had to wait out the weather right now because it was so windy before and i was hoping that the sky
especially here opens up but it didn't by the way there's a hot water pool if you're here definitely
take a dip in that it's really really comfortable very silky water and it's it's great to enjoy but
it's a little bit more challenging to find a good spot to shoot here but let's see what we get
all right to wrap things up i'm now at nelly fiat which is this cone volcano which is about
ten thousand years old and about 800 meters high it's located north of miele darts yakult which is
this glacier here in the background and you can get here the easiest way from the south
and either you take f210 and you have to cross a weather which is a little bit more on the
more difficult side and you want to see what the weather conditions are and how high the river is
but there's also the f232 which i'm going to take the way back which is supposedly a little bit
easier and goes closer to that glacier here but what makes this volcano really stand out is that
it's completely covered in green moss so what you want to do is actually get a drone up to really
get the contrast between the greenish volcano which happens to be the same color as my shirt
and the black desert here that you have the weather conditions here are ever changing
and it's been like really super windy and i don't know now it's actually picking up again
um so all the all the dust is being spewed up and and is in this valley here it's like this
misty situation right now but as always in iceland you have to fight with the elements if you ever
wondered how i'm doing these animations in my videos i've been actually using for use plugins
for motion vfx and they were so kind to let me try out the new 3d trackings to see throughout this
video totally recommend checking out this stuff with the link in the description below now if you
want to know how to travel in the highlands check out this video right here and if you happen to
be in iceland in winter you cannot really go into the highlands but i listed my favorite
locations for winter iceland right here and if you enjoyed this video give it an old thumbs up
and subscribe and hit that notification bell and as always thanks so much for watching have a good
morning have a good night whenever and wherever you are around this beautiful planet bye bye
you