Untamed Beauty: Iceland from the perspective of the award-winning photographer.
For forty-five years, Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson has observed the farmers of his homeland during the sheep roundups—a centuries-old tradition that unfolds across the country’s dramatic highlands.
Every autumn, sheep farmers of Landmannaafréttur uphold this ancient practice of communal herding, navigating the rugged landscape on horseback or foot to gather their flocks from summer pastures. Battling unpredictable weather, they drive the sheep into a central pen for sorting—a ritual unchanged for centuries in one of Iceland’s most breathtaking and challenging terrains.
Landmannaafréttur, a remote highland region in southern Iceland, is a striking geological landscape shaped by volcanic activity, tectonic shifts, and extreme weather. Situated between the volcano Hekla and the glacial area Jökulheimar, it lies in an active volcanic zone along the rift between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. The area hosts multiple volcanic systems and Iceland’s largest geothermal site, Landmannalaugar. Glacial erosion and geothermal forces have sculpted an ever-changing terrain of obsidian fields, black sand, steaming fumaroles, and vibrant mineral pools.
In Behind Mountains, Axelsson presents powerful, atmospheric black-and-white photographs that vividly document the interaction between people, animals, and the rugged landscape.
From the introduction text by Ragnar Axelsson:
Even in the rugged environment of Landmannaafréttur, the balance between man and nature is a delicate one.
Mountain herding relies on specific knowledge, passed down through generations, that emphasises community, organisation, and endurance. But time brings change. In culture, technology, and the environment itself. What will the future of the mountain roundups be? Will the people who depend on, protect, and care for their land be able to continue in their ways? Can the freedom of the mountains remain undisturbed? What is to come is uncertain. But as Þórður Guðnason, a man of these mountains and my guide through them, says, ‘no matter what happens, the mountains will remain in their place’.
