Photography exhibition on ICELAND by Pall Stefansson

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From April 20, Páll Stefánsson´s images of Icelandic scenery will be exhibited at the Nordic Council of Ministers´ Office in Latvia, 13/3 Marijas Str, Bergs Bazaar, Riga.
Páll Stefánsson about the exhibition: „What makes a nation? It must be the wind. As a photographer, I have never quite managed to capture the wind during the quarter century I’ve been photographing my country, Iceland. This, despite the fact that I’ve scrutinized every shape and color, the light, and anything else I am able to see.

Sometimes Iceland seems gigantic when compared with countries like Belgium, Denmark, Israel or El Salvador. At other times, it seems no more than a speck compared with countries like Canada, China, Brazil or Mali.
Iceland is sparse; just over 300,000 inhabitants formed by the wind, the light, the short winter days. But it’s the wind in particular that I’ve never quite managed to photograph.
Why these pictures? To me, they’re creating a certain mood. Showing a land being formed. A land diverse in light and color, a new land not unlike the nation that lives here in the north just below the Arctic Circle. A faraway land closer than you think; just five hours from New York, and under three hours from London.
But one shouldn’t talk about pictures; one should enjoy them. After all, a picture is worth more than a thousand words.”

On April 20, at 18:00 Pall Stefansson will hold an Artist’s Talk at the Cinema KSuns and on April 20-21 a master class LANDSCAPE AND MANSCAPE: THE EDGE OF RIGA will be led by the Icelandic photographer. The master class is open for photographers, photography and art students as well as advanced amateurs interested in landscape photography and documentary photography in general.

Photographer PÁLL STEFÁNSSON was born in North Iceland in 1958. After photography studies in Sweden he joined the Iceland Review magazine in 1982 as a photographer, later also as a photo editor and editor-in-chief. Páll Stefánsson has published more than 20 books and has done advertising and commercial work for such organisations as Leica, Hasselblad,  Panasonic, IKEA, Volkswagen and UNESCO. The latter chose him as one of the 20 photographers to document the world heritage places. Páll Stefánsson has had exhibitions in all the world’s continents except for the Antarctic. His large format Icelandic panorama exhibition at the Museum of Natural History in New York was attended by a nearly million people. Páll Stefánsson’s works have been published in a number of  international  printed media, including Time, National Geographic, Newsweek, Geo, W, Sunday Times Magazine and German Vogue.  

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