A Testimony of Life

I

The history of Icelandic 19th century photography is somewhat nebulous, especially earlier on. The official birth of photography is considered to have taken place in 1839, when Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851] introduced a new technology to the French Academy of Sciences. The technique Daguerre developed in collaboration with his countryman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) was the daguerreotype, photographs developed on silver-coated copper sheets. More people were involved in experiments to capture the world in a mechanical two-dimensional form; around this time the Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) succeeded in producing a photographic negative, a calotype, but then it became possible to make a paper copy from the original negative. Hence, the ability to produce photographs in multiple copies.

The photographic technique represented a veritable world revolution. In the very next years photographers popped up around the world, many opened studios, yet others travelled around the world. The public was hungry for photographs of distant places. And the public wanted photographs of themselves and those dear to them; photography confirmed their existence and endowed them with a new position.

It was one of these travelers, the scientist Des Cloizeaux, who took the first known photographs in Iceland, in the summer of 1845. There is no other record of photographers in these parts until 1856. Des Cloizeaux made daguerreotypes here and two of his photographs have been preserved.

Many of the oldest photographs from Iceland which have been preserved were taken by foreign travelers in the seventh and eighth decades of the 19th century. Icelanders had started to learn the craft to some extent, but hardly any of the first photographs have been preserved. Around 1860 the first studios opened in Akureyri and Reykjavik, but these did not turn out to be successful ventures. In the middle of the seventh decade of the 19th century things took a new turn when a few photographers, Icelanders who had studied photography in Denmark and Danish photographers who came to the island opened studios. There was a watershed when Sigfús Eymundsson (1837-1911) returned to Iceland in 1866 having completed his photography studies in Norway. He was the first Icelandic photographer who succeeded in making a living from photography and was a photographer par excellence, one of the most noteworthy to have worked in this country, to this day.

Icelandic photography had come into being.

II

The camera is in essence a recording device and the photographs a record of what is registered. Each and every photograph is special and behind it is the will and consciousness of the photographer. With the passing of time, from the time the photograph is taken, it could be said that most photographs are of interest, and importance, in a certain respect They are, in fact, records. A testimony of a life that was lived, people no longer among us, of altered landscapes, of joys, sorrows, of possession that were once the shining pride of their creators and are now only just debris in the wake of time. Only preserved in photographs.

And then there are the other considerations; what makes a photograph a good one? Or an impressive one? Which photographer is good and which one less so? Here many factors enter into the equation. An aesthetic appraisal, which is subjective and personal, is probably the most important thing. And certainly the creative work must be placed in a historical context. To think about movements and vogues of the time, ideology in arts overall, and the attitude of the artists, the photographers. One also needs to look at the overall work. What is the legacy of these photographers? Did they make, even by coincidence, a few good photographs, but were otherwise presentable artisans? Or did they endeavor to create a unique work of visual art? Those are the kind of artifacts we wish to see, certainly, photographs that make us stop and point: This was so and no one can illustrate this better.

III

When photography came to Iceland and gained foothold, it developed in a similar manner as we see in neighboring countries even though the population here is smaller and the photographers fewer, and the craft therefore more one-dimensional in many ways. We still have had many talented and interesting photographers. Studio portraits were for many decades the mainstay of photography in this country. Some of our best photographers dedicated themselves exclusively to studio portraiture and had a magnificent grasp of that craft. Jón Kaldal (1896-1981) and Sigríður Zoëga (1889-1968) were portrait photographers of the first rank. The personal photographs of Jón Kaldal are unique in their style and dramatic approach. Often these are portraits of artists and farmers with long beards; the visages spring into the brightness from a dark background. The beginning of Sigríður’s career is one of the most interesting adventures in the history of Icelandic photography. She studied with one of the most remarkable photographers of the 20th century, the German August Sander, and was his assistant for a spell. Even though Sander’s style exercised an indubitable influence on Sigríður’s work, she was a photographer in her own right. Her pictures have a clarity of form, are extremely well lit and composed, and wrought with a rare grace.

Other photographers travelled around the country with their cameras and equipment with varying goals in mind. Sigfús Eymundsson photographed various townships of the country and for a while attempted meaningfully to sell such photographs. Sigfús leaves behind more location photographs than any other 19th-century Icelandic photographer. He photographed known tourist locations and pioneered the practice of selling the photographic image of the country to tourists. The Golden Circle which tourists still follow to this day was among Sigfús’ subjects: Þingvellir, Geysir and Gullfoss, with deviations, Brúarhloð, Brúará and Marardalur in the Hengill area. The last location was a popular destination for daytrippers from Reykjavik on horseback.

Nicoline Weywadt (1848-1921) was the first Icelandic woman to study photography. She first operated in Djúpivogur, where her father ran a store, and later from her home at Teigarhorn near the township. Nicole was mainly engaged in portraits but she also took remarkable photographs of the eastern townships; dramatic photographs of edifices, houses and boats, in magnificent natural settings. It can be said that breathtaking beauty, the sublime, here manifests itself for the first time in Icelandic photography.

Pétur Brynjólfsson (1881-1930) was a town fixture in Reykjavik at the dawn of the 20th century. He ran a splendid studio in a house that was specially constructed for that operation, but his subjects varied. During an industrial exhibition in 1911 he exhibited location and landscape photographs in addition to portraits, and interior photographs from Reykjavik households. Pétur’s best photographs are very well crafted and offer a testimony to the movements that were afoot in other countries at that time; he was recording daily life and his nearest environs and the photographs offer interesting insights into the world of the burgeoning middle class in Reykjavik almost a century ago, in addition to being visually impressive.

When Magnús Ólafsson (1862-1937) opened his studio in Reykjavik in 1901, the production of stereoscopic photographs became a part of his services. These were two almost identical photographs of the same scene mounted side by side which were often viewed in a binocular device to create the illusion of depth. Such photographs enjoyed great popularity at the time, but these photographs by Magnús showed inter al. popular tourist attractions and the town life. More people followed Magnús’ example and produced stereoscopic photographs in this country, but he published a catalogue with fifteen hundred photographs from all over the country. No photographer at the time travelled so extensively in Iceland or endeavored to capture it all in photographs in such an ambitious manner. Magnús has sometimes been called the town photographer of Reykavik, but whether he took photographs in town or in the countryside the results were invariably admirable; indeed Magnús was one of the most remarkable photographers to work in Iceland.

Magnús’ son Ólafur (1889-1954) ran one of the most popular studios in Reykjavik before the middle of the 20th century, taught the craft to many and employed at all times a staff that took portraits for him and according to his precepts. Ólafur also took photographs all over the country. He held exhibitions of his works and started enlarging photographs, coloring them by

hand and marketing them as works of art, in competition with contemporaneous painters. Ólafur also exhibited his photographs abroad and considered them particularly well suited for presenting Iceland to other nations.

Vigfús Sigurgeirsson (1900-1984) al­so exhibited his photographs abroad in the thirties and was titled artistic photographer. He generally presented landscape photographs that evinced a clarity and formality of style. Vigfús was a very ambitious photographer, just like Ólafur Magnússon. This attitude is manifest in his photographs of Icelandic industries and daily life from those years and after the foundation of the Republic in 1944, but then he travelled regularly around the country with the President of the Republic. Vigfús was the official state photographer. In addition to recording the receptions the President attended, he photographed the townships and the people, and the sailors, farmers and workers at their tasks. As records these photographs are unique, and of remarkable aesthetic value.

Around and after the second world war it can be said that the landscape in Icelandic photography undergoes great changes. The world opens up and shrinks at the same time, with attending media, advertisements and marketing. In these areas the photographers play a big role. The employment opportunities for Icelandic photographers became more varied. Even if magazines akin to the American LIFE Magazine didn’t prosper here in the post-war years, in this small community, people here as elsewhere were still very interested in reading about their fellow men and seeing the world in photographs. Then the publication of Icelandic newspapers became more vigorous and in 1947 Morgunblaðið hired the first photographer who made a life-long career of photojournalism in this country.

Ólafur Magnússon (1926-1997) took the middle initial “K” to distinguish himself from his namesake. He also took up the title of photojournalist and exalted it to a higher plane than others had done in this country. To this day those who want to try their hand at photojournalism feel compelled to compare themselves with Ólafur К. Not only was he a journalist of the first rank, with an acute feeling for current trends in society, he also had a robust interest in politics, culture, daily life, and in people in general. He succeeded in making use of all this in his busy job, when showing his readers what was happening at the time. As behooves a photojournalist, Ólafur К. was conscious of the fact that in addition to illustrating the present in photographs, he was recording the history of the nation, and he did so with great professionalism and ambition.

One of the disciples of Ólafur К. at Morgunblaðið was Ragnar Axelsson (born in 1958). It could be said that he assumed the mantle of photo journalist of the first rank, but he is also a photographer with a distinct personal style. Ragnar has focused more and more on recording in personal photographic narratives the history of places and individuals; telling stories of people and their circumstances, often over extended periods in gripping photographs. Ragnar has been the recipient of many acknowledgments at home and abroad, his photographs have been exhibited far and wide and it is safe to say that he is one of the most influential photojournalists in northern Europe today.

Guðmundur Ingólfsson (born 1946) differs from Ragnar in many ways, he is indeed more objective in his approach to the world at large, but no less interesting as a documentary photographer. Guðmundur has long worked as a commercial and industrial photographer. In addition he has worked on a personal record of edifices in his environs, especially in Reykjavik but also in other municipalities and abroad. He has also done nature photography and the result is different from what is usually seen in mainstream nature photography in this country; the photographic world of Guðmundur is more formal and reserved than is often the case with his colleagues in that area.

When Guðmundur returned from his studies in Germany he ran a studio for a while with Sigurgeir Sigurjónsson (born in 1948) and they brought with them a fresh vibration to contemporary Icelandic photography. Sigurgeir studied in Reykjavik before continuing his studies at the respected Christer Strömholm School of Photography in Sweden. Sigurgeir went on to become a commercial and industrial photographer of the first rank in Iceland, and his acute understanding of shades of light and formal composition have been a decisive factor in his success. These attributes have been a great boon after Sigurður started increasingly to concentrate on more comprehensive recording projects, especially in Icelandic nature and daily life and his world of photography has enjoyed great popularity as it appears in its purity and clarity in books like “Icelanders” from 2004.

Since Páll Stefánsson (born in 1958) returned from his studies in Sweden and was hired as a photographer at Iceland Review Magazine, where he has worked as a photographer and picture editor, it can be said that he has changed the face of Icelandic nature photography and even the Icelandic vision of nature. That must a considered a considerable feat. Not only has Páll recorded images of all corners of the country, in all seasons and at all hours, for over three decades, but his approach towards the country is new and fresh. His color photographs evince a technical clarity and a personal sense of form; in many of the best photographs the nature of the country becomes construction material which Páll has shaped according to his own design with a style he can call his own and he has been a source of influence for many nature photographers in this country.

IV

The position of someone selecting a national team in sports is an enviable one to many, but it can also be difficult and controversial. He needs to pick a team. All positions must be manned in such a way which he believes will yield the best results. This tyrant must take many things into account; age, experience, the individual’s contribution to the team as a whole, also technique and originality. Which of the player’s attributes distinguish him from the rest of the team? Opinions vary, but one person is in charge. He stands and falls with his decisions.

The same can be said of the curator. I have been assigned to make a selection of Icelandic photographers. The coaches of national sport teams work in the present and they need to pick players from thegroup which is in competitive form at each time. I look at history and pick photographers and their work on that basis.

When teaching photography and the history of photography I have often resorted to a comparison with national sport teams when I deal with certain photographers and emphasize their importance and strengths. He or she would certainly be in the starting eleven, I have often said.

I decided that the choices for this selection would be based on the following criteria:

- The group should consist of eleven photographers — like a soccer team. Originally I intended to include substitutes, but who wants to be a substitute on such a team? Then more than eleven were banging so forcefully at my door, or refused to be struck off the list, so I ended up with a selection of thirteen. Indeed that is a prettier number and more reminiscent of the thirteen Icelandic Santa Clauses than soccer players; the Santa Clauses replace one another, in a historical progress, but also they form a team...

- The photographers selected have all worked in a meaningful and ambitious manner at their craft, most for a long time, since the medium took foot to the present day. On the other hand, I set an age limit; only those who were born before 1960 would be eligible. The photographers therefore had quite a while to prove themselves. I still admit that the older and more experienced the photographers I selected are, the more secure their place becomes. The departed have fewer opportunities to put themselves forward but there are four living photographers in the group.

- The subject of the photographers is important. I decided to choose first and foremost photographers who make man and his vestiges their subject. Landscape and nature are the first things that come to the mind where many people are concerned when the talk turns to Icelandic photography. And this should come as a small surprise; in this country a small population has always lived in a big and picturesque country. Those who record the culture and, at the same time, man in this nature, were selected as a core factor on the one hand and how these people present their own age. Conversely, there are also photographers who have placed great emphasis on nature, not least Páll Stefánsson and Sigurgeir Sigurjónsson, but both have exerted considerable influence on, or confirmed, people’s vision of the country in recent decades. Then some of the older photographers, such as Sigfús, Vigfús and father and son Magnús and Ólafur, worked extensively with the image of Icelandic nature.

- I regret that not more women were included in this Icelandic team. There are only two of them, Nicoline Weywadt and Sigríður Zoëga. But in view of the circumstances under which people make photography their life’s work and dedicate themselves to the craft in a meaningful way over extended periods of time, then in spite of the fact that the many promising women, born before 1960, have been active photographers for a spell, most of them relinquished photography within a few years, often when they were married or had children. It speaks volumes that Nicoline and Sigriður were unmarried. Today the situation has changed in this respect and the ratio of women among ambitious photographers is much higher.

V

And how are Icelandic photographers then? Hopefully these photographs will answer the question. The best are good, fully comparable with what has been done well on the other side of the ocean. Iceland was isolated for a long time, and still is geographically, but the camera does the same thing in Iceland as elsewhere. This is just a recording instrument. It is the attitude and world view of the photographer that is all-important.

Sigfús Eymundsson

1837-1911

Sigfús was a leading pioneer photographer in Iceland. Even though he tried his hand at many things in life, photography was his main profession over a period of some years and he excelled in that field.

Sigfús studied photography in Norway from 1864 to 1865. In 1866 he embarked on a career as a photographer in Iceland and became a photographer in Reykjavik in 1871. He ran his studio at Laekjargata 2 until 1909. Sigfús often assigned the operation of his studio to his brother-in- law Daniel Danielsson. In spite of many fine photographs that were taken at the studio it is the exteriors that keep Sigfús’ name alive, as that of one of the leading photographers to work in this country.

Sigfús embarked on a number of excursions to photograph the countryside and he leaves behind many photographs, which are pure of form and of great interest, from towns and villages around the country. Yet most of his location and urban photographs are from Reykjavik. Sigfús also took outstanding landscape photographs, where the focus is on places travellers found impressive and in this field he was a pioneer in this country.

Sigfús’ collection, preserved at the National Museum, contains about 14,000 portrait plates and 830 plates of exteriors.

Nicoline Weywadt

1848-1921

Quite a few women were engaged in photography during the first decades when Icelanders were dealing with this new visual field. One of them, and the first one to study the craft and attain most success, was the daughter of a storeowner in Djúpivogur, Nicoline Weywadt. Her best known pgotographs show villages by estuaries on the Austfriðir coastline; a landscape that is at once hauntingly beautiful, impressive and frightening. Obviously, Nicoline had a keen vision of her environs, and developed her visual sense in an interesting manner. This is apparent in how she shows people, buildings and ships in a nature that seem almost obtrusive and intimidating.

Nicoline studied photography in Copenhagen from 1871 to 1872 but then started working as a photographer in Djúpivogur, until 1881. Subsequently she moved her studio to her home at Teigarhorn in Berufjörður, where she worked until the turn of the century. Nicoline never married. Nicoline’s niece, Hansína Björnsdottir (1884-1973) studied the rudiments of photography with Nicoline before going on to study in Copenhagen. She ran the studio until 1911.

Nicoline’s portrait plates, 750 in all, are preserved at the Natoional Museum of Iceland along with around 80 plates of exteriors by her and Hansína.

Magn ú s Ólafsson

1862-1937

Magnús Ólafsson was the Reykjavik town photographer but he also paid tribute to the countryside in his photographs; none of his contemporaries traveled as extensively over the country to take photographs. Magnús was passionately interested in the medium and its potential and was indubitably of what can be called an artistic bent.

At the outset Magnús worked as a store steward and manager, before studying the rudiments of photography at Sigfús Eymundsson’s studio. He turned professional after having completed his studies with Peter Elfelt in Copenhagen in 1901, when he was almost forty years old.

In addition to taking portraits of people in the studio, Magnús was present with his big camera when something was going on in Reykjavik. He also celebrates everyday life; the horse by the washing line, people milling about the harbor, women by the washing pools. Magnús is a kind of Icelandic Eugene Atget (1857-1927), but about the same time that Magnús worked here the Frenchman wandered the back streets of Paris with a quiet sensitivity — both men left behind charming records of the daily life and the milieu of their time.

The bulk of Magnús’ collection of plates and negatives is preserved at the Reykjavik Museum of Photography.

Pétur Brynjólfsson

1881-1930

Pétur was one of the most talented photographers to work in Iceland; a testimony to this fact are the 27,000 plates from his studio, preserved in the National Museum of Iceland. The portraits are of considerable quality and are polished pieces of work in all respects, but the ones of most note among the whole oeuvre are a few hundred photographs Pétur took beyond the confines of his studio. During those years, around a century ago, when he ran his Reykjavik studio with panache and for a spell a branch in Akureyri, he took for example photographs at a tuberculosis clinic, in stores, in the homes of his fellow citizens, of people in the street and daily life in a growing capital, in addition to the Danish king’s visit in 1907.

Pétur’s career was brief although he made quite an impression while it lasted. He studied his craft at Sigfús Eymundsson’s studio in the winter of 1900 until 1901, and abroad a year later; in Norway, Germany and Denmark. In the fall of 1902 Pétur opened a studio in Bankastraeti 14. In 1905 he built a house for the studio at Hverfisgata 18. Pétur always had a handful of employees, both Danish and Icelandic photographers, and lady employees who learned their craft from him. Among those were Sigríður Zoëga and Steinunn Thorsteinsson who bought the studio

from Pétur in 1915 when he moved to Denmark.

Sigríður Zoëga

1889-1968

The friction between Icelandic photo­graphers and the Western history of photography was nowhere more pronounced than in the case of Sigríður Zoëga, who studied with one of the masters of photography, the German August Sander, and served as his assistant. Sander was famous for his portraits of Germans from all walks of life. It is obvious that Sigríður who was a thorough professional and took her work seriously indeed, had been greatly influenced by her mentor. She concentrated mostly on formal portraits in her studio, yet sometimes in peoples’ homes, and there are some photographs from companies and others in social settings but those are few.

Sigríður has been called the photographer of the burgeoning middle class. She knew the art of posing people, to create a visually formal relationship between the subjects in group photographs; the lighting and ambience of these photographs, whether between siblings, colleagues or individual models, have an extremely strong character.

Sigríður Zoëga ran a studio in Reykjavik from 1914 to 1955, with Steinunn Thorsteinsson but they had both worked for P é tur Brynjólfsson during the first decade of the 20th century. She attended courses in Denmark in 1911 and continued her studies with Sander in K ö ln from 1911 to 1914.

Jón Kaldal

1896-1981

Jón Kaldal is celebrated as one of the greatest masters of the studio portrait to appear in this country. His best portraits are subdued yet dramatic; the photographer emphasizes the main characteristics of his subject

Jón Kaldal’s technique was based on simple but effective lighting where the highlights which fall on the subject are used to bring out the contours of sitter and underline certain features from the darker shades of the photograph, often in a masterly fashion. Kaldal’s technique may be compared with the “chiaroscuro” technique of the baroque painters, which the Italian Caravaggio (1571-1610) perfected.

Many of the best known photographs of Kaldal are of artists who visited his studio, but the photographer enjoyed bringing out the personality of the artists. Many of these photographs are the best known ones of the artists in existence. His portraits of the sweeping faces of Icelandic country chieftains are also renowned.

Jón Kaldal studied photography with Carl Ólafsson in Reykjavik from 1915 to 1919. The next six years he worked for various studios in Copenhagen but in 1925 Kaldal bought a studio at Laugavegur 11 and there he ran his studio until 1974. Jón Kaldal’s vast collection of plates and films is preserved at the National Museum.

Ólafur Magn ú sson

1889-1954

Ólafur was an active studio photographer in Reykjavik. Yet he distinguished himself with his landscape photography and these, crafted with sensitivity and an affection for the greatness of the country, keep his name alive. Ólafur often set about enlarging his photographs and sometimes colored them by hand; he presented his photographs as independent artistic creations, the equivalent of landscape painting.

Ólafur studied photography with Magnús Ólafsson, his father, before 1908. He continued his studies in Copenhagen and Berlin. In 1913 he opened a studio in Templars’ Alley 3 and ran it there for the rest of his days. It was a comprehensive operation; his studio enjoyed great popularity and was known for professional workmanship.

Ólafur placed great emphasis on exhibiting his personal photographs in an artistic context On several occasions, for example, he held an exhibition of nature and landscape photographs in Copenhagen, many of them hand-colored and these exhibitions were held to splendid reviews.

Olafur’s collection of plates and photographs is preserved at the National Museum, almost 50,000 photographs. In addition, the Reykjavik Museum of Photography houses 1,200 of his photographs, mostly exteriors.

Vigfús Sigurgeirsson

1900-1984

Vigfús studied photography with Hallgrímur Einarsson (1878 -1948) in Akureyri from 1920 to 1923. He took pains to be keep abreast of new developments in the field. Thus he acquainted himself with new ideas and techniques in photography in Denmark and Germany in 1935 and studied filmmaking as well.

Vigfús worked as a photographer in Akureyri from 1923 to 1936. From 1936 onwards he worked in Reykjavik but he was inter al. a designated photographer for official institutions and a presidential photographer since 1944. In addition to working as a photographer he shot motion pictures of the municipalities around the country and of the nation at work and play from 1937 onwards. On his travels around the country Vigfús took unique documentary photographs of people at work; photographs that show working methods and techniques at sea and in the countryside, charming, stylistically pure photographs.

Vigfús’ photographs of the nation and its people appeared in many books. In addition he held exhibitions of his photographs at home and abroad.

Throughout his career Vigfús had many assistants and students. Among them were his son Gunnar Geir who still runs a studio in his father’s name.

Ólafur К. Magn ú sson

1926-1997

Ólafur К. was the first Icelander to make photojournalism a life-time career and produced incomparable work as a photo journalist and documentary photographer. Indeed, in his day he was sometimes called “the nation’s photographer.”

Ólafur studied photography in New York in 1944 and filmmaking in Los Angeles in 1945 and 1946. He signed on at the daily Morgunblaðið in 1947 as the newspaper’s first full-time photographer. As is the case with photojournalists, Ólafur К. photographed everything that needed to be photographed. But as more photographers signed on, he was able to specialize more and more and attend to projects closer to his heart. Ólafur was a unique reporter, endowed with a knack for events and how best to illustrate and show what was happening, be it political turmoil, accidents at sea or artists in their studio. It can be said that he photographed people from the artistic community with a unique affection and application, and everything to do with aviation and politics. The hustle and bustle of daily life is also prominent in his photographs.

In addition to being endowed with an acute sense of his subjects, Ólafur К. had a highly developed sense of form and his best photographs bear his strong personal hallmarks, in regard to formal composition and his attitude towards the subject.

Guðmundur Ingólfsson

Born 1946

For years Guðmundur has been in the vanguard of Iceland photographers, a versatile professional who has been active in personal documentary photography in addition to commercial and industrial photography.

Guðmundur studied with the famous theorist and photographer Otto Steinert (1915-1978) at the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung in Essen, Germany, from 1968 to 1971. The reigning ideology in German photography at the time influenced Guðmundur’s development as a photographer and formed his visual sense of the world. A vision which can be said to be in the spirit of the ideas which cropped up in Germany and were termed New Objectivity. This was based on modernistic emphases concerning clear and pure forms, and that an emotional and subjective stance shouldn’t overshadow the pictorial attributes — even if the feelings of artist towards the subject are important to his approach in other ways.

Guðmundur has participated in exhibitions at home and abroad for over three decades. He places equal emphasis on photographing landscapes and nature in a formal manner and recording the vestiges of men within various municipalities, yet mainly in the center of Reykjavik.

Sigurgeir Sigurjónsson

Born 1948

Sigurgeir studied photography in Reykjavik during the latter part of the fifties. He continued his studies at the school of the respected Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm i Stockholm in 1970 and 1971 and also completed further studies in San Diego in the United States.

Photojournalism was Sigurgeir’s chosen venue for a spell, but subsequently he concentrated on commercial and industrial photography over a long period. In recent years he has concentrated on publishing books of photography; the creation of a comprehensive series of photographs where Icelandic nature has been in the forefront, but also people and daily life.

Sigurgeir’s first book Svip myndir from 1982 contains mainly portraits and photographs of daily life. Sigurgeir’s first book of color landscape photographs, Icelandscape appeared in large volume in 1992 and aroused deserved interest for his sweeping visual world and the unified vision. Other well-know epic projects of Sigurgeir’s are Lost in Iceland, 2002, and Our Country, 2006. The book Icelanders by Sigurgeir and writer Unnur Jökulsdóttir from 2004 was a best-seller among Icelandic books of photography, but the book contains Sigurgeir’s

photographs of people in the countryside and imposing nature photographs.

Ragnar Axelsson

Born 1958

As a teenager Ragnar started working as a photojournalist at the daily Morgunblaðið. At the paper Ragnar developed a visual sense which has become a very personal one, and there he had the advantage of working with his mentor Ólafur К. Magnusson. Over a long period of time Ragnar has been Iceland’s most influential photojournalist, a reporter par excellence.

Ragnar has long been engaged with personal documentary projects with a narrative strain. In his photographs he chooses to tell the stories of people and places he visits time and again. Ragnar’s most expansive project to date, which has made his reputation in many countries, is revealed in the book Faces of the North, published in 2004. This includes photographs he took in Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands and the subject is the daily life, working methods and habits which have been subject to rapid changes. The photographs often show people who live off the land in harmony with a harsh nature. Ragnar’s sense of form and light is strong and he constructs impressive photographs with the collusion of man and nature.

Among Ragnar’s other personal works is the record of sheep round-ups and a book on the subject of the changes which are occurring in the northern parts of the world because of global warming.

Páll Stefánsson

Born 1958

Páll studied photography in Sweden. He completed his studies in 1982 and was hired as a photographer at Iceland Review Publishing, which has published the eponymous magazine about Icelandic issued for decades as well as the magazine Atlantica. Páll has also been the picture editor of the publication and worked as a photographer on different assignments all over the world.

It can be said that in his career Páll has succeeded in changing the emphases and face of Icelandic landscape and nature photography in an interesting manner, but around the same time the resurgence of the landscape in Icelandic paintings can be discerned. Páll works in color, in different film formats, but in his photographs there is an acute feeling for shades of color and light and forms in nature, and Páll makes use of these in a very stylistically pure manner. In his handling, the place names and location often no longer matter, rather they form an anonymous flow of water over the frame, cracks in a glacier or bright-green clusters of moss on a black bed of lava, forms that tell stories of the vaster aspects of nature and its attributes.

Páll’s photographs have been prominent in the Icelandic world of publishing. In addition he has exhibited his photographs widely, at home and abroad.

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