Corridor

Ice Caves, Iceland. 2022

One of few ice caves we were guided into from a local photographer and ice climber. This cave was a very special one, with many short corridors such as this one. This was, for the most part, tall enough to walk through until the darkness beyond the light. After that, it was maybe three feet tall, which Seth Hamel, the workshop instructor and friend, ventured deeper into. Though I had my eyes set on a composition. Which is this one here. We guided our group of photographers into this section, which most ended up leaving out the way we came because the cave opened up a lot with more options to photograph. But this section beckoned me to photograph and sit with until I felt I made a worthy photograph. Deep in an ice cave, these wild patterns were everywhere. As the sound of creaking, dripping, and slow movement echoed throughout the ice cave here in Iceland, I was content photographing this small scene right here. The bubbles were unlike things I have seen before. These were ancient bubbles. Thousands upon thousands of years old, just now being seen, likely for the first time ever in history. This small spot in a vast lands of ice. Hiking into ice caves is extremely dangerous. People die every year in these. These are constantly moving and morphing, but in hyper speed compared to other canyons and formations. These caves are designed from flowing water under the ice surface, and that flow creates friction, as well as warm air that flows along it, this melts the surrounding ice, creating cave systems.