This is a spread from the book Elements that I'm attracted to. I've never seen the book. The picture looks like it might have a certain magic. It has the promise of it anyway—I can't really see because the JPEG is too small (I can't find a larger one). The village up high on the cliff (I think it's a village—can't really quite see), the seabirds wheeling in the air below—. The feeling of depth created by the outcropping on the lower right and the massif in the background. The strong central slash of the white waterfall. Of course who knows how the reproduction quality is, or whether the picture holds up when you can really see it.
This might sounds weird, but although I am not a photography collector, I do tend to collect images...and I have since I was a very small boy. I have lots of favorite images in books and there are even a few cases where I bought a specific book to get a really nice reproduction of a certain photograph. I used to sometimes "visit" favorite images by pulling out a succession of books from the bookcase and turning to the pictures I wanted to see. There are always treats in a good book.
I guess you could say TOP is a sort of photograph collecting mechanism. I love to trawl through old TOP images. I seem to sort of naturally collect images, without giving it much thought on a "meta" level; I just like to go back and look at things again. That might be why I take pictures at all, actually—to be able to study, at leisure and at length, a scene I enjoy seeing. To see what a longer look might reveal. To contemplate. Video doesn't scratch the itch for me very well, although I've watched many movies more than once. I'm very devoted to still pictures.
Mike
UPDATE: Well, I certainly know more about the picture now, thanks to Dori and several other readers. The picture features Múlafossur Waterfall, said to be the top tourist attraction in the Faroe Islands. The Faroes, a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, are situated in the Atlantic Ocean between Norway and Iceland. The tiny village is Gásadalur on the Western island of Vágar.
The picture was taken by Fran Mart, a wedding photographer from Spain who lives and works in Scotland. I reached out to Fran to see if he'd like to say anything about his picture for us but haven't heard back yet. The picture is on Instagram and it's available as a stock image from Adobe Stock.
A travel website I alighted upon referred to the waterfall as a "photographic destination." Jan-Peter commented that the locals are getting a little exasperated with all the photographers.
As for the locale, there are certainly a lot of pictures of it on the Internet, although many are from a somewhat different viewpoint than Fran's. Tony McLean sent me his picture of it taken with a Leica M240 and 21mm Super Elmar:
And there's a video showing several moods of the wind and the waves here.
Thanks to all!
UPDATE #2: After it occurred to me that I would not like to live in Gasadalur for one peculiar reason in particular, on Christmas morning I Googled "do people ever fall off cliffs in the Faroe islands?" and was led serendipitously to this nice post by Justine Kibler, a photographer and traveler from the UK, of the Lost in the Midlands blog. Reading it was like taking a virtual hike in the Faroes! With a little peril along the way.
Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Book of interest this week:
Elements: In Pursuit of the Wild, Rucksack magazine
(clicking on the links above takes you to Amazon)
Elements from The Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
David Mackenzie: "To the comment on the local citizens getting tired of all the photographers...they have learned well from the ongoing visitor-caused disaster in Iceland. Now in the Faroes they are requiring photographers to buy permits and hire guides. That will certainly help keep the hordes down a bit."
kwesi Budu-Arthur: "A beautiful image that perhaps achieves too much. For me, the inclusion of the three perfectly placed birds is what turns this fine work of art into a stock photo. Sometimes leaving a little something to the imagination can be a very good thing."
Múlafossur waterfall / Faroe islands
Tourist destination - most pictures are taken from the very same spot ...
https://www.guidetofaroeislands.fo/travel-faroe-islands/drive/mulafossur
Posted by: P@L | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 10:08 AM
TinEye image search to the rescue, looks like an Adobe stock image:
waterfall in the mountains
By Fran Mart
https://stock.adobe.com/276790752?as_campaign=TinEye&as_content=tineye_match&epi1=276790752&tduid=a58914c742a2283953b188093314a052&as_channel=affiliate&as_campclass=redirect&as_source=arvato
Posted by: Dori | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 10:43 AM
IG link to the image:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxX6vLeAs6n/
Posted by: Dori | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 10:44 AM
https://www.instagram.com/p/BxX6vLeAs6n/ - IG but a bit more detail
Posted by: Djadomi | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 11:46 AM
I seem to remember a lengthy Walker Evans interview where he said something to the effect that "photographers are collectors of images".
Posted by: Jimmy Reina | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 12:11 PM
Faroes!
Posted by: HVJ | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 01:36 PM
Wow. Could be a sensational photograph, indeed. What a teaser!
By the way, how is that Christmas-week time off going?
Posted by: robert e | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 02:00 PM
Sagardur in the Faroe Islands. A ten minute drive from the airport and very picturesque. These days so popular that the locals don’t like photographers very much...
Posted by: Jan-Peter | Wednesday, 23 December 2020 at 07:39 PM
Yep, 10 minutes from the only airport in the Faeroes (until a tunnel was built, it took the postman about four hours to reach that spot. Here's the fall with a nice gust of wind:
https://flic.kr/p/2gYNgtA
To my delight, I was watching a video someone posted while visiting that spot and saw the dog who hangs out where tourists can throw her a rock to retrieve and saw her playing fetch with other folks just as she had played with us. There is a very nice Cafe in the tiny village, and there is a lot more to see in the Faeroes:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGdkgCQ
Posted by: scott kirkpatrick | Saturday, 26 December 2020 at 01:25 PM
Given the number of similar versions of that waterfall picture one can find online, I'd assumed there was some law in the Faroes that it was obligatory to take a photo there before you were allowed to leave.
Posted by: nextSibling | Tuesday, 29 December 2020 at 08:48 PM