The highs & Lows of 2020

the good stuff, the bad stuff and some other stuff

I probably don‘t have to go into great details about why this year was a bit different from, well, most other years. It‘s always good to take a moment, look back on what‘s been going on and hopefully learn a few lessons while at it. That’s why I wanted to do a little recap of the year, focusing on both the good stuff - and the bad stuff. Even though this year was a bit of a challenge, there were a lot of good things that happened and many lessons to be learned. I‘ll start with the good stuff, end with the bad stuff and then a few words on how I plan to approach 2021.

THE GOOD STUFF

When masks were only for gangsters and super heroes

I can‘t imagine a much better way of starting a new year than licking the sun on a place called Hapuna Beach on a small cluster of islands in the middle of nowhere, namely Hawaii. We spent Christmas and New Years travelling around and enjoying the Hawaiian islands, with the single goal of relaxing and staying away from the usual holiday stress. In a nutshell, it worked like a charm. Before we arrived, our only idea about Hawaii had come from B-grade romantic comedies and to our surprise, it wasn‘t that far off. Everyone was super relaxed and friendly and it took us about three days to slow down and join the Hawaiian pace of doing things (note: it took us about the same time to return to our usual pace after we got home). I‘ll let a few pictures do the rest of the talking.

“COVID-19 joins the chat”

After getting back to Iceland there came a few pretty basic months of winter in Iceland. Working on a few smaller projects and preparing for a few bigger ones planned later the year (apparently, the world’s plan was a bit different than my own). The virus hit and basically everything work-related came to halt for a month or two. The projects I was planning turned into big question marks and there was a lot of uncertainty. It wasn’t all bad though. I could finally work on some important things I had been postponing for a while (website work, accounting, backup of all my hard drives, etc) and I had time to come up with new project ideas which were more relevant to the current situation. Some of the projects went through and some are still on pause for a different time - but even some only came to be because of the situation created by the virus.

Had a photo book published

In 2018 I moved to the Reykjanes peninsula and started doing some research on the area (hiking maps, Google Earth, photo books and through conversations with some of the more experienced locals), followed by some exploration of the locations that looked promising. To my surprise, the peninsula was filled with super interesting places (rough mountains, vast lava fields, geothermal areas, rugged coastlines, craters and many historical locations). I went out as much as I could and started building a small portfolio of the region with each trip revealing more hidden gems. In the spring of 2019 I was offered to take the lead as the main photographer for an extensive photo book about the Reykjanes peninsula - in collaboration with Reykjanes UNESCO Global Geopark. The book has finally been published and will be available to purchase soon (with all profit going into building up and preserving this unique region). Will publish a Behance project soon where I will show more from the book.

Kayaking down Lagarfljót all the way to the sea

“Hey, should we row down Lagarfljót - all the way to the sea?” – “Let’s do it! Are there any scary spots on the way?” – “Only one I think - by a power station.” This is how a conversation started late on April 29th and turned into one of my favourite projects so far. I will write a separate piece about it but basically we spent more than five days rowing down this big river in East Iceland called Lagarfljót until we reached the sea (and then went a little bit further). This was done in collaboration with Inspired by Iceland and Visit East Iceland, with the end result being a detailed visual story of the whole journey (photo and video). This was the most complicated „shoot“ I‘ve ever had to prepare for and super demanding but one of the best adventures of my life. Stay tuned for a special post about this one (preparation and gear, the adventure itself, lessons etc.).

Backyard adventures and other outdoor shenanigans

The more outdoor adventures and activities I get to enjoy, the better I feel in general. This year I was lucky to be able to travel a lot around my own country with some of my friends and family. I also ventured into some new photography genres (products and portraits) which was interesting and fun. I haven’t had time to edit a lot of these until now so I’m excited to share these - I’ll let the pictures do the talking here (in no particular order, just random outdoor fun here and there throughout last year).

Started running/cycling

I finally started moving consistently again after two years of „not having time for it“ – never been a big runner/cycler, but with a busy life it‘s probably the most convenient way to stay fit and fairly sane. I’m pretty sure there’s no single thing has had more impact on my sleep, mood and general well-being. Just created a Strava account where I’ll post my epic ultra hardcore workouts.

Online print store

As a photographer, there are few things as satisfying as seeing your images printed on high quality paper, framed up on a wall. For a few years I had taken care of every print order manually from start to delivery, which I really enjoyed but the process could sometimes drag on which wasn’t ideal. After months of a repeated process of editing, test printing and fine tuning I finally launched my online print store. I decided to make each one a limited edition, both to make each print more special and to challenge myself to keep creating new images to offer as fine art.

Our daughter was born

Since I prefer to keep my personal life – well, pretty personal – I saved this one for last for the 2-3 readers who are still here. But I couldn‘t write about the highlights of the year without including the birth of our second child. It’s a tricky juggle trying to do your best as a parent while also starting and pushing a new career - it has definitely made everything harder with time being way more limited, but it’s also had certain upsides which I’m only realizing lately.

THE BAD STUFF

The obvious bad stuff

I don’t feel I need to point out the obvious things that were bad about 2020 - virus came, many things sucked.

Greenland expedition: CANCELLED

For a long time, my dream has been to experience Greenland and on top of the list is a sailing expedition around some of the incredible fjord systems there. I had joined an adventure company for exactly that, an expedition to East Greenland as the lead photographer. As so many things, it got cancelled. It was a huge bummer, but I do realise how lucky I am that “not going on a sailing expedition to Greenland” was the biggest downside of my 2020.

Family and friends

This should probably be a highlight of every year – but for many (not-so-good) reasons it can somtimes come second. Not spending enough time with certain people is something I almost always look back on and feel I should have done more of. I can by no means blame it 100% on the situation but it definitely didn’t help. Something to work on this year.

Projects postponed or cancelled

At the beginning of 2020 I had proposed a few exciting projects for the year with companies I’d like to work with. Some of them were cancelled when the virus hit and some were simply postponed. I can’t complain too much though, since I’ve had a lot of work throughout most of this time and some projects were even made possible party due to the situation. At the moment, one of the biggest lesson (professional) of this year was to try to be as flexible as possible and aim to have many different revenue streams. There will always come times where things change, big or small, so flexibility and diverse types of work should always be a priority.

MY APPROACH IN 2021

My mind has a tendency to stray to the past. Switching between trying to learn from mistakes and simply ruminating about things that didn’t go too well. It can be difficult to control which side gets the upper hand – but one thing I’ve found to help is to write things down. That’s part of the reason I decided to put this overview together - it helps me put things into perspective and set sails in a preferred direction. I'm not one to make big new year's resolutions - but I can’t help feeling that there's a new chapter about to start, even though it's just letters and numbers on calendars. I’m really excited for 2021 and the upcoming adventures and projects and already lining up a rough way throughout the first two quarters of the year.

I had already written a lot about my approach and focus for this year and it was getting a bit too long since this one is already way longer than I expected (kudos if you’re still here!). I don’t want to make this one too long and I don’t want to boil it down too much so I will make a separate post about my approach for this year and where my focus will be, both personally and professionally.

As I went through this I realized that 2020 wasn’t all that bad, it was actually a pretty good one - we were lucky that we weren’t directly affected and we both had solid work. Thanks for the read and see you in the next one!

Happy new year!
Thrainn Kolbeinsson