Vinson Smith – Flora Fauna (2017)

This was taken in Vík í Mýrdal, or Vík, on the southern coast of Iceland.

It’s a quaint little town. The main tourist draw is its utterly breathtaking black, volcanic sand beach. Also, there’s an iconic church position on some of the highest terrain in town. Here’s a film photo I took one of the half-dozen times I’ve been there:

The rock formation in the background of the first image is called Reynisdrangar. It’s a basalt sea stack.

But there’s a folk story about the sea stacks–two night trolls stole a ship and we’re dragging it back to shore. Unfortunately, the boat was either too heavy or they were further from their cave than they planned because they were caught by the rising sun and immediately turned to stone.