1. Please introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do?
Hello! I am Judith. I would like to call myself an “ambitious amateur photographer”. My main focus is nature and landscape photography, but I also like to make detours to other genres. Everything I know about photography is self-educated. A few books here, some internet research there, inspiration from the works of other photographers and a lot, really a lot, of trying things out has brought me to where I am today. My great happiness is my home on beautiful Lake Constance, where I have a lot of photo spots right on my doorstep and the way to the Austrian, Swiss and Italian Alps is not too far. I also love to travel to more exotic destinations on my vacation, with the north being particularly appealing to me.
2. How long have you been into photography, and what drew you to it?
I actually had my first simple camera when I was a child, around 10 or 12. Back then, I took simple, unpretentious pictures on vacation with my parents and basically just imitated the adults. After a few years, my interest waned. Since I didn’t develop film myself, the hobby became too expensive (buying film and paying for development), too complicated (limited number of pictures if you couldn’t buy more film in remote regions, limited flexibility in terms of film sensitivity) and too limited (no way to influence the result). With the advent of digital cameras, my interest was reawakened: the costs were no longer dependent on the number of pictures, the result could be influenced by post-processing in image editing programs, settings such as ISO or white balance could be made separately for each individual image, and the preview of the shot immediately afterwards meant that learning results could be achieved more quickly. I love capturing moments that only last a short time and have not been seen by many people and sharing them with a larger audience. The beauty of the landscape during a colorful sunset or under the northern lights, the violence of nature in thunderstorms, cityscapes at blue hour, impressive, loving or funny scenes from the animal kingdom are wonderful to experience and through my photographs I create memories for myself, but also for others.
3. In one sentence, please describe what you captured in this shot.
The picture shows a characteristic Icelandic glacier river that can freely choose its bed without human intervention. Structures and colors of the water are constantly changing depending on the water level.
4. What style of photography would you describe this as and do you typically take photographs in this style?
I would describe the style as aerial photography. As a supplement to “conventional” photography from the ground, I like to take aerial photographs from time to time. They provide a new perspective and often show something that remains hidden from the observer on the ground. Sometimes the viewer has to look longer to see what is being photographed.
5. When and where was this photo taken?
I took this photo in autumn 2023 at the estuary of the Héraðsvötn in northern Iceland near the town of Skagafjörður.
6. Was anyone with you when you took this photo?
When I took the picture, I was alone, as I always am on my trips to Iceland. I like to make my decisions about where and when to take photos spontaneously and on my own; long discussions about place and time are annoying to me.
7. What equipment did you use?
For the recording itself I used my DJI drone Mavic 3. For the editing, I used AuroraHDR, Corel PaintShop Pro, Denoise #5 professional and Sharpen #5 professional from Accelerated Vision.
8. What drew you to take this photo?
The structures and colors of Icelandic rivers have fascinated me ever since I first saw pictures of them. In fact, that was the main reason why I bought a drone. And you always discover something new: the same river, even the same place, looks completely different a few weeks or months later. Light, water level and the time of year all play a big role.
9. How many attempts did it take to get this shot? How long did it take you to get one that you were satisfied with?
I have had a drone since November 2019 and since then I have been searching for beautiful structures in Icelandic rivers on all available online satellite imagery services. The estuary of Héraðsvötn has been on my bucket list since the beginning and every time I am in the area and the wind and weather allow a takeoff, I fly over this river. I have managed to get some pretty good shots a few times, but on this flight in autumn 2023 the water was bluer than ever before.
10. Did you edit this photo?
If the subject allows it, my drone shots are always bracketing a series of five images. I then combine these images with AuroraHDR, make adjustments to contrast, saturation and color balance in Corel PaintShop Pro, denoise with Denoise #5 and sharpen a little with Sharpen#5.
11. What encouraged you to share this photo online and with others?
For me, it is one of my best aerial photographs of Icelandic rivers: beautiful structures in the water and the riverbed, the incredible, captivating blue and the color contrast between blue and brown. I wanted to share this fascinating shot so that others can enjoy it too.
12. Did you learn anything in the process of taking, editing, or sharing this photo?
It’s not just this single photo – my whole involvement with nature photography shows me how beautiful and at the same time fragile our nature is and how strongly everything is connected. This river has an incredible amount of space in its bed, it can easily swell to four or five times its size without having any impact on people, animals or infrastructure. Here in densely populated Central Europe, every major flood has catastrophic consequences.
13. Do you remember what you had for breakfast (or lunch or dinner) the day you took this photo?
Haha, funny question! But no, I can’t remember. Eating is a completely secondary matter on my trips to Iceland, I often don’t have time for it. When the weather is bad or the light isn’t good enough for photography, I have a quick snack, usually a late lunch or early dinner. There aren’t many things to see in this place other than the river, so I only stopped there on the way through and then drove on to Skagaströnd. I remember that I got there quite late, but I’m not sure if it was too late for dinner.
14. What would you like people to take away from this photo?
I keep finding that people react negatively to new things. Be it new ideas or “new” animals that migrate to our region. Many of these animals are not new, they were here before humans came, were driven away by them and are now returning. We must (re)learn to coexist with nature. In Iceland, people learn very well to respect and accept nature. Volcanic eruptions, Jökulhaups or blizzards are forces of nature that humans cannot influence or eradicate – we must learn to deal with them. In Svalbard, Canada and Greenland, people live together with the largest land predator, the polar bear, and show that it can work. This should also apply to wolves, beavers, bears and other animals.
15. Is there any feedback that you’d like to get on this shot?
There is no specific feedback I want, there are just a few things I don’t want to hear. Criticism is never pleasant, but it sometimes makes you think. I often find criticism about the choice of location or section a little difficult. For example: “The picture would be more harmonious if the camera had been panned further to the right” – no, it wouldn’t be, because then a distracting object would have come into the frame. Or: “A higher location would have been good for the picture” – if one had been available, I would probably have chosen it. Positive feedback in the sense of “great shot” or “wonderful” is just as unhelpful. Why is it perceived as wonderful or great? In general, I wish that suggestions or criticism were not expressed as universally valid, but as the perception of the individual viewer. So not “the section is poorly chosen” but “I personally don’t like the choice of section because…” What one person considers bad or ugly, the next person may consider to be really great. Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. And many people also tend to criticize something as unrealistic because they have never seen or experienced it themselves.
16. How can anyone reading this support your work?
I am happy about every visitor to my website homepage and my account on Flickr.
Here are a few other places to check out:
I sell my photos as wall pictures on various shop pages via my homepage, my calendars from Calvendo-Verlag are available on Amazon, among other places. Of course, you can also purchase licenses for most of my pictures, the conditions can be viewed on my homepage. Last but not least, I naturally have the dream of earning my living with nature, travel and landscape photography. If anyone can support me in any way, please feel free to send me a message.
Judith Kuhn is a passionate amateur photographer from southern Germany. She loves photographing wild landscapes in the Alps and the Arctic. She has already received numerous awards for her pictures in international competitions.