Faces of Iceland

With “Faces of Iceland” our team aimed to catch a few of the many sides this mysterious and magic island has to offer. As I remember another traveller saying, every second corner of this place offered a completely different impression to you – and still there are so many places we could not cover here.

Eastfjords_Panorama
About us:
Normally xoio is creating CG-imagery, but we decided to dive into the field of aerial photography in 2014. Spending senseless hours and euros tinkering with our phantom 1 we booked a trip to iceland to have as much liberty as you desire to take images from above.

Our trip was overshadowed by some inital crash on day 1 which basically wrecked the drone completely. Frustrated we moved on and decided to forget about the smashed up copter, but after few days we took another look at the parts and decided to piece them together again. After spending half the night in a riverbed cleaning the single elements from volcanic ash and with massive amounts of ducttape we fixed it. The phoenix literally rose from the ashes again – quite dramatic! Two weeks of intense filming ensued: Flying, charging batteries, storing footage, Setting up camp, trying to find some sleep in the neverending day of midsummer …

Greenvalley Panorama

One of my favourite spots at Dakgil

 

Special credits go to our friend Martin Eigenbrodt, who saw this whole voyage through with us and patiently accepted hours of fiddling with the gadgets in some mosquito-ridden backvalleys. Most of these images have been taken around Dakgil, which is here!

Thakgil_Panorama_Aerial Photography

A final note: Since our copter is is first generation, we really had to put a lot of effort into postproduction. We personally took a lot of liberty to adjust colors or replace some pieces if rotors or legs of our phantom disturbed the impression. Still I guess, the places closely resemble the impression of the actual place in natura – go and have a look yourself!

Peace, xoio

Dorsmoerk Fixing_the_Drone

Project:

Faces of Iceland

Participants:

xoio – concept, production, postproduction

Year:

June 2014 - January 2015

Task:

Production

Scope:

Everything :)