On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Christopher Mathews
Summers in Iceland are wonderful, with mild weather, long daylight hours, and a landscape full of history and wonders. I love the days here.
But I live for the nights.
This is my house, about an hour outside the capital. Apparently, I live in a Christmas card.
Northern lights dance across the sky and shine in the waters of Úlfljótsvatn, a lake just east of the capital.
The geyser Strokkur erupts beneath the northern lights. Fun fact: the English word “geyser” is derived from the Icelandic word Geysir – the name for name for Strokkur’s now-dormant big brother about 100 meters away.
Even the mundane seems magical when viewed in the proper light. A road construction project in southern Iceland.
The forgotten dream of distant seas. Scuttled ships, by now no longer seaworthy, rest on the south shore of a fjord north of Reykjavík.
A country church watches over a small graveyard and is in turn watched by the night.
Sometimes the road less traveled is more interesting than the others. On this one Lady Aurora partners with the distant lights of the Sólheimar ecovillage.
The northern lights become visible in mid-August as the first stars return to the evening sky. Auroras can sometimes be seen as late as mid-May, just before the long daytime of summer takes hold.
sab
OMG!
Could you describe how the Northern Lights sound?
JPL
Amazing pictures.
Betty Cracker
That sky is just amazing.
JeanneT
Wow!
NeenerNeener
Wow!
waynel140
There seems to be no better word. Wow.
YY_Sima Qian
Incredible!
?BillinGlendaleCA
Great shots.
Juju
Oh my word, that’s beautiful.
sab
I have heard that the Northern lights hiss and pop. Is that true?
Rusty
Thank you for sharing, stunning! I even loved the excavator.
Betty
Just beautiful. A magical place. The church photo is touching somehow.
ThresherK
Words fail me. Wowee.
marklar
What a perfect lesson on content and composition. Stunning.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: Not in my experience.
Nice pics, CM.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly:” Not my experience.” Tell more. All I know is from novels. But if your experience is no noise not much to tell. Nada.
sab
This Chris Mathews sells photos and notecards that are gorgeous.
HeartlandLiberal
During the pandemic I have been doing a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle every two weeks. Your picture of your house qualifies for an excellent puzzle. What beauty. All of the photos.
JML
spectacular!
Wag
Phenomenal. I need to return to Iceland during a season when the Lights are out.
sab
@HeartlandLiberal: US Post Office has some good puzzles.
Steve in the ATL
Suck on this, BillinGlendaleCA!
HinTN
@Steve in the ATL: Look who’s awake… How’s the ATL?
WaterGirl
@sab: Do you have a link?
HinTN
Truer words were never penned. What a treat. Thank you, Chris Matthews!
HinTN
@sab: I’m in the old fashioned habit of sending cards. How do I order his?
sab
@WaterGirl: You know me. What is “a link”
ETA : Google it? Works for post office puzzles. Also works for Chris Mathews iceland photography, Mathews has one t not two.
Christopher Mathews
@sab: I’ve never heard any sounds from the lights themselves, and I wouldn’t expect to hear anything – the aurora is quite high and the air there is quite thin. The silence is actually part of their eerie appeal: when I see spectacular lights in the sky, I’ve been trained by Lucas and Bruckheimer and Emmerich to expect lots of noise. But no – nothing.
Christopher Mathews
@WaterGirl: Well, you could try this: chris-mathews-photography.com/
WaterGirl
@sab: Never mind. I went off to search for comments by Christopher Mathews so i could see if he had linked his nym to his site.
It takes awhile for a search of 6 million comments to return the results, and by the time it did, i could see that he had just posted a comment in this thread. I should have waited 5 minutes!
WaterGirl
@Christopher Mathews: See my comment at #30. :-)
i made your name clickable in the post up top, also.
sab
@Christopher Mathews: That is quite interesting. Different from what I have heard, but you are there. Actually, I like the idea of it being silent, but who cares what I think.
WaterGirl
@HinTN: I made his name clickable in the post up top, and he has commented so you can click on his nym in the comment, and it will take you to his website.
Mike in Oly
Spectacular!
WaterGirl
@Christopher Mathews: This is me officially imploring you to do one of our Artists in Our Midst posts.
Steve in the ATL
@HinTN: chilly this morning, though probably a bit warmer than the Cumberland Plateau!
HinTN
@Steve in the ATL: We had 30F down here in the valley on three north side. Beats the hell out if yesterday’s tornado.
MelissaM
Lovely and wonderful! Thanks.
SkyBluePink
Beautiful beyond words-
Thank you for sharing these photos
WaterGirl
@SkyBluePink: I know, I teared up just looking at the photos. I’m not sure i have a word that good enough to describe the beauty.
delk
Amazing!
J.
Awe-inspiring. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing your photos. They are beautiful.
dp
Spectacular.
dm
@sab: yes, they sometimes make a sound, apparently as a result of a temperature inversion separating layers of air with different electrical charge:
Link
Yutsano
The fox fires of Iceland! That’s amazing stuff.
Miss Bianca
Oh, man. Yep, Iceland is definitely on the Travel Bucket List.
cain
Just amazing pictures – really wanted to visit Iceland this year. Maybe next year!
Would I be able to see the northern lights in March or April?
currawong
@NeenerNeener:
Damn. I was going to say that. Just wow!
Christopher Mathews
@cain: There’s evidence that the Earth’s magnetic field is more susceptible to disturbance around the equinoxes, so late March to early April should be good. Ofc., there are a lot of other factors at play, too – so we’ll cross our fingers for you.
Tehanu
Another “Wow!” here. Gorgeous. I’ve always wanted to see the auroras.