Field Notes - Icelandic Adventures
Reminiscing on a bucket list adventure to the iconic DC-3 Plane Wreck in Iceland
Hello and welcome to the first Field Notes post for this year. It has been a busy but productive start to the year, working on new workshop collaborations, and delivering my first in person camera club talk, which although highly anxiety inducing, was a great success. I hope that you are also enjoying the start to the new year, and working towards reaching your photography goals for 2026.
For today’s article I would like to take you back to my 2016 trip to Iceland, and in particular, reaching a bucket list destination - the iconic DC-3 plane wreck located near Solheimasandur. The edits that you see accompanying the article are all new, and the context is explained below.
The Project
This mini series of images is serving as an interlude to a wider project I am working on entitled “CINEMATIC”. The project is a tribute to my passion for film, cinema and movies, and in particular, the fascination and respect I have for cinematography and colour grading as a tool for telling stories and capturing the imaginations of audiences.
The Incident
The U.S Navy Douglas C-117D was forced to make an emergency landing on Solheimasandur beach in November 1973 due to severe icing on the wings and the engine of the aircraft.
The Outcome
Pilot Greg Fletcher landed the plane successfully, and all seven crew members survived.
The Abandonment
The U.S military salvaged all valuable parts and left the fuselage on the beach, where it still stands today, battered, bruised, but iconic.
In 2016, although this was a well known and popular destination for visitors, there was still a reasonable amount of thought and effort involved in accessing the site. Having recently done some further research into the location, it now seems that there are tour buses that run daily taking people to the wreckage. That kind of feels like cheating to me !! :)
It is a four to five kilometre walk each way to the site from the car park, and we set off across the bleak, frozen apocalyptic landscape on a bitterly cold April day. During the hike the snow started to fall, leaving a white layering on top of the monochromatic sand.
We didn’t see another sole during this hike, and were starting to doubt that we would reach our destination, having walked across endless nothingness for what seemed like an eternity, when over the peak of a dune the eerie outline of the fuselage became visible. This was one of the first times I experienced butterflies of nervous excitement and anticipation about a shoot. It felt great, and is one of the reasons this trip means so much to me, and why I treasure both the images and the memories.
Looking back on this now, we were woefully unprepared to take on a hike of this distance in such barren and unpredictable conditions, and this is something I would not undertake again without extensive preparation, especially in the conditions we experienced. We were of course fine, but I have read stories of people who were not so fortunate.
Seeing the wreck for the first time lived up to all expectation, with the desolate beauty of the surroundings creating a nordic noir atmosphere and colour palette straight out of the movies. It’s cliche to say, but it was a haunting experience.
We spent a good amount of time photographing the skeletal remains of the fuselage, and taking it all in. Due to the coastal fog and mist, it was hard to put the location into perspective, with the mountains and the coastline shrouded and non-existent, causing a claustrophobic ambience in the pit of the stomach.
This remains one of my favourite photography trips, and although the images have been seen a thousand times, and are in no way “unique”, they have an importance to me, and hopefully these new edits and colour grades have added something a bit different to the viewer.
The wreck continues to be battered by the harshness of Icelandic winters, and will eventually succumb and be no more, although this feels like a timeless destination. I am grateful that I documented it when I had the chance.
Beautiful photos. As a guy who loves photography and hiking, and airplanes, I enjoyed the write up of your experience. The DC 3 (all versions) is my favorite airplane. Too bad there are busses running there now. I would prefer to experience it on my own two feet.
This was a fascinating read. The atmosphere you describe really comes through in the images, cold, isolated and almost haunting. Knowing the story behind the wreck makes the photographs even more powerful. I also think you captured the cinematic look beautifully. It truly feels like a scene from a film.