The 100 Day Project #36

Black Diamond Daggers

Diamond Beach, Iceland, 2025

The 100 Day Project, Day 36

The day was cold, drizzly, and very windy. Diamond Beach in southern Iceland is not a place that coddles you. That day it demanded my full attention — the black pebble beach, the roaring surf, the pelting rain. No horizon visible, just a milky fog heavy on the shoreline turning the car-sized icebergs floating out to sea into ghost-like figures.

There is a discomfort to this photo, a violence. A darkness pushing up against the beauty of the textures, the colors in contrast.

The dark layers cutting through the ice are sediment — ash, minerals, and organic material accumulated over centuries as the glacier slowly advanced and retreated. The water frozen within it likely fell as snow long before any of us were born. To stand beside something that ancient is a specific kind of humbling. The realization that the earth has been doing its slow, patient work for an unimaginably long time, and we are very brief participants in it.

The ice is melting faster now, with climate change accelerating the process. My home country has disappointingly pulled out of the Paris Accords, which will accelerate the damage even more. Profit over protection. Not surprising from leaders who protect their pockets, not people.

I made this photograph with my Yashica on Kodak Portra film, and printed it on Hahnemühle FineArt Pearl paper — a luminous, almost metallic surface that captures the reflectivity of the ice in a way that feels true to standing beside it.

A small note on the printing: it is a delight to return to printing today. I missed it. A long-awaited maintenance cartridge for my Canon Pro-1100 finally arrived and I printed this image as soon as my workday ended. I'll be doubling up on printing and posting for a spell to get caught up. So much to share with you.

About the 100 Day Project: A global creative challenge where thousands of artists share a piece of their practice every single day for 100 days. I'm joining creatives around the world, and I'm excited to bring you along. Each day I'll be sharing one of my photos — some recent, some old, and some from my current project — along with the story behind it: where I was, who I was with, and why I love it.