Airwaves and Auroras

So this weekend my parents came to visit! And by coincidence they arrived during the Iceland Airwaves festival, the largest music festival in Iceland. I had thought that all but a few of the events were just for festival wristband owners but it turns out I was incredibly wrong! Over the course of 5 days there were over 400 events across the city, of course these were all on over the same few hours each day. So it would only be physically possible to see maybe 50 of these events, I saw 6. Though that was because we had not planned on this festival even happening so we had plans to see the Golden Circle again (but in Winter!) and eat at restaurants every night.

Out of the 6 acts I saw there were 3 that were totally stand-out performers: Vigri, The Anatomy of Frank and John Grant. With John Grant being the major highlight, I would recommend everyone looks him and the other bands up. They're all worth a listen.

The Golden Circle proved as magnificent as last time, my love of things icy made everything look even more magical to me! Pictures will explain it all better:

This time of the year is when the brown trout make their migration to their spawning grounds so we got a great sight of the trout (very slowly) moving up river.

Ice!

Lots more ice!

Ice plus waterfall!

Ice + more ice + huge waterfall. Wow.

And on the last night of this mini-holiday the weather forecast had told us that the sky would be completely clear and that there was a chance of auroral activity. So we headed out to the lighthouse at the end of the Reykjanes peninsular (where quite a few aurora enthusiasts were also hanging out) and lo and behold! The aurora presented itself!

When you've got the stars and the city lights AND the aurora, you get something magnificent.

You can even see the lateral movement from the aurora here

Look at that! The lighthouse with a gorgeous swirl above! Plus other camera lights but we'll just ignore those.

As you may have seen my aurora pictures keep (in my opinion) improving, I really hope to convey what I actually see but this kind of photography is difficult and I hope to keep getting better. But no picture can ever really translate the emotion that this spectacle delivers, I've seen a lot of people reduced to tears watching them and you really cannot blame them. I don't know if there is anything as humbling and inspiring as the aurora, especially when it is in full colour wheel mode!

Thanks for reading!