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Shedding Light on a Faraway Land

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For The Intelligencer, Andy McCullough’s review of Jenkintown photographer, John Welsh, and his travels in Iceland.


THE INTELLIGENCER, July 2007

By Andy McCullough

Iceland slowly drew in John Welsh.

It wasn’t until his second trip to the North Atlantic nation that the Jenkintown-based photographer realized the opportunity before him.
“I rented a car and took a trip out into the countryside,” he said. “And I realized “this is an amazing place.’ ”

That was in the spring of 2002. A few months later, Welsh returned and began taking pictures.

Over five years, he took 8,000 pictures during six more visits. The result: “Images of Iceland,” a photo exhibit now being shown in the Brendlinger Library at Montgomery County Community College. The gallery will be open until Aug. 11.

Welsh became interested in the country while traveling through Scandinavia in 1993. While riding the train throughout the area, he found himself flipping to an entry in the back of his travel book on Iceland. He resolved to visit there, which he first did in the winter of 2001.

Welsh has been a photographer for 20 years, but this was his first project shooting landscapes. Most of his prior work had been freelance photography of people for newspapers in the Philadelphia area, which he said gave him a fresh perspective for the gallery.


Rather than sitting around waiting for the ideal lighting, as most landscape photographers tend to do, Welsh chose a different tactic.

“I went to different locations and I tried to make the best of the lighting, whether it was the perfect setting or not,” he said.

What comes across is a natural perspective of Iceland, a land of great geologic diversity ranging from glaciers to thermal pools.

Pictures in the exhibit range from the red sand beaches of Lake Kleifarvatn to the breathtaking Dynjandi waterfall to the scorched earth surrounding the active volcano Hekla.
A caption accompanies each photograph, which Welsh said helps explain his experiences in the country.

Underneath a shot of a storm blowing off the mountains in the Hafrafell region, Welsh writes, “I wondered if this is how Iceland’s ghosts travel.”
Said Welsh, “I’m just trying to tell the story.”

Andy McCullough can be reached at (215) 957-8148 or AMCCULLOUGH@PHILLYBURBS.COM.


 

 

Images of Iceland at MCCC

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A review by Montgomery Newspaper’s Nicole Drumheller Gargus about John Welsh’s exhibit of Iceland at Montgomery County Community College.


MONTGOMERY NEWSPAPERS July 2007
By Nicole Drumheller Gargus

Although many of Jenkintown photographer John Welsh’s photographs are stunning enough to be postcards, they are not the blue-sky, tourist-driven images of travel brochures. Rather, they give insight into what life is really like in remote Iceland.

A delicate green flower struggles to bloom on a rocky terrain. Majestic snow-covered mountains disappear into thick gray clouds. Refreshing waterfalls roar through the almost deafening silence of the land.

Welsh first traveled to Iceland in 2001 out of curiosity. Images of the country’s barren and rugged landscape stirred his imagination and sparked his interest. He went there strictly as a tourist. He took a few snapshots for interested family and friends, but as a journalistic photographer of 20 years, he mostly left his day job at home. However, over his next seven visits to Iceland, he discovered that photographs were an effective way to document his travels and keep a fulfilling journal.


Of his work Welsh said, “Overall, this project is more about my travels than it is my photographs.” Welsh enjoyed the upbeat life of Reykjavik, but his travels consisted largely of spontaneous three- to four-week drives around the island. As he passed through small towns of around 300 people, he would stay in small hotels or guesthouses.

Welsh saw the country in various stages over the years, and he realized his photographs could educate and enrich the lives of others. Welsh decided to share his photographs with the public so that people could experience his journeys and learn about this seemingly undiscovered country.

Each photograph has its own unique description – the gallery is a passport to another world. On traveling alone, Welsh said, “For me it is about freedom. There is no noise, no cell phones, no distractions – I find time to look inward.” Walking through Welsh’s gallery, it is easy to see the freedom he finds there.

IF YOU GO: John Welsh’s “Images of Iceland” will be on display at MONTGOMERY COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, 340 DeKalb Pike, Blue Bell, PA 19422, through Aug. 11. Free & open to the public. Info: 215- 619-7349.

MCCC Displays Slices of Iceland

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Evelyn Short’s review from the Lansdale Reporter about John Welsh’s exhibit of Icelandic images at Montgomery County Community College.


THE LANSDALE REPORTER, June 2007

By Evelyn Short

The “raging river” is contained not by grassy banks, but by tall chiseled-looking gray rocks. Because there are no homes, trees or people, the expansive wall of old lava looks like part of a canyon that could be several stories tall.

“It’s a stream that’s coming down from a glacier, and it found its way down the mountain,” said John Welsh, who photographed the scene. “It’s cut through the rock.”
The rock actually rises only about 4 or 5 feet above the water, and it is a smaller slice of the overall landscape.

It is one of 34 panoramic images of Iceland that Welsh has on display in a solo exhibit at Montgomery County Community College. The photographs are a selection from 8,000 images he took during seven trips to the country.

“I’ve never been there and the pictures make me want to go,” said Holly Cairns, director of The Multiple Choice Gallery. “It looks more inviting than I thought it would from seeing the photographs.”

With a name like Iceland people mistakenly think that it is a country of solid ice.

But, Iceland is an island about the same size as Ohio, with a population of 300,000. It has more than 10,000 waterfalls, hot springs and the coastline has fjords and green, fertile valleys. Despite its name, only 11 percent of the country is covered by glaciers. A good portion of the country is uninhabitable, with moss-covered rocks from old lava flows, according to the Icelandic Tourist Board.

Welsh discovered Iceland by following his sense of curiosity. In the early 1990s he visited Mexico. While there, he met some people from Denmark and became curious about Scandinavia. In 1993 he spent the summer in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. While traveling by train he found himself reading about Iceland and wanting to learn more. In 2001 he took his first trip to Iceland. The more he went and showed people his photographs, the more their interest fueled his desire to photograph more of the country.


“This is my 20th year as a photographer and I’ve never shown until the past few years,” Welsh said. “I was always working for newspapers and doing commercial work. Doing exhibits is new for me.”

At the opening reception for the exhibit on Saturday, Welsh fielded questions from people about the country and its landscapes.
“They were just amazed that this is what Iceland looks like,” Welsh said.

For those, who missed talking with Welsh at the reception, people can read the text mounted next to each photograph in which Welsh describes how he stumbled upon the scene and felt at the time he captured that moment in time.

“Around me steaming vents vented sulfurous clouds that disappeared into isolation,” Welsh wrote about his image Leirhnjúkshraun, which shows peaks of old blackened lava rock covered with patches of snow. It was taken in an active volcanic area in northern Iceland.

The title of each photograph is an Icelandic name relating to the place. Many of the scenes were visible from the road on which he was traveling and were close to cities.
“For some I had to spend a lot of time hiking,” Welsh said. “These are places you find along the way to somewhere else. They’re not in guidebooks.”

The Multiple Choice Gallery is in the library on the second floor of College Hall at Montgomery County Community College, 340 DeKalb Pike, in Whitpain. The exhibition runs through Aug 11. Admission is free. Gallery hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, plus some evenings and Saturdays depending on the summer class schedule. For more information about the exhibit or hours, contact Holly Cairns at hcairns@mc3.edu or call (215) 619-7349.