Iceland review - 2015, Side 78

76 ICELAND REVIEW
BY EYGLÓ SVALA ARNARSDÓTTIR.
PHOTOS BY HELGI SKÚLASON.
People say I must be patient, but I’m
not. Patience has nothing to do with
it. I just enjoy sitting and watching
the birds. They’re like the rest of us; their
lives are about eating, reproducing and
taking care of their young ones. They’re
anything but insensate animals,” says pho-
tographer Helgi Skúlason. Self-educated,
he has earned recognition for his nature
photography, of Icelandic horses in win-
ter landscapes—and of birds. “I enjoy the
birds the most. I grew up in Seltjarnarnes
[a neighboring community of Reykjavík],
where Bakkatjörn is located. In the sum-
mer, it’s possible to spot up to 30 different
species around the pond in one hour. I used
to go there as a boy. That’s where my inter-
est in birds started.”
Many of Helgi’s bird pictures are taken
by Tjörnin, the pond next to Reykjavík
City Hall in the center of the capital, where
families with young children go to feed
bread to the ducks. “I practically live there,”
comments Helgi. An exhibition of his bird
photography was held in the City Hall
in 2012. “One viewer came up to me and
asked whether she could tell me what she
saw in my pictures. I told her to go ahead.
At Tjörnin, Reykjavík. An male Arctic tern with a stickleback, on its way to
feed the female which is nesting. “I had waited many years for this picture,”
says Helgi.