Iceland review - 2016, Page 41

ICELAND REVIEW 39
PHOTOGRAPHY
I didn’t really realize how big [of a
deal] it was until I got home. It’s
not every day that you have your
photo in the National Gallery… it’s
such an impressive building, it looks
like the White House,” says 44-year-old
photographer Anna Ósk Erlingsdóttir.
One of her portraits (left) was selected
as a finalist in the Australia National
Portrait Gallery’s 2007 annual National
Photographic Portrait Prize. The strik-
ing redhead sitting down for a cup of
tea in the Australian bush happens to be
a former high school classmate of mine,
I tell Anna. Before the interview, I learnt
that Anna spent time living remarkably
close to where I grew up. Striking coin-
cidences, we agree. Later, Anna tells me
by email that the story behind the image
has a dark ending. “I had sold the image
... and it was to be shipped to the owner
after the exhibition. By then I had moved
back to Iceland and had asked a friend
in Canberra to ship it for me. A little bit
later the buyer contacts me and tells me
that she hasn’t received the image. We
looked into it and apparently the postal
flight—a small airplane—had crashed,
with the pilot flying it, just outside of
Sydney... and it was never found. So my
first and only piece to be showcased in
the NG is lying on the bottom of the
ocean somewhere off Sydney... with the
pilot.”
Anna spent two-and-a-half years in
Australia, studying on the Sunshine