Lost in Iceland remains one of (if not the) best selling photography book ever published in Iceland. Reykjavík Grapevine did interview with Sigurgeir October 2012, excerpt below and full interview here:
Lost in Iceland
Sigurgeir is best known for his landscape photography today. His book ‘Landscapes,’ published in 1998, was a breakthrough in local landscape photography.
“At first I thought landscape photography was cheap, I looked down on that kind of photography,” Sigurgeir says. He was nevertheless commissioned, mostly because of his advertising experience, to take photos for a calendar for one of Iceland’s biggest firms. He did that for nine years, and that’s when his passion for Icelandic landscape was born.
Following ‘Landscapes,’ he published his most famous book, ‘Lost In Iceland,’ which radically changed the way Iceland was promoted abroad. “It was unheard of to promote Iceland with a dark photo full of rain! I think I’m getting closer to the experience of tourists visiting Iceland. We must not get over-touristic. People come to Iceland to get to know themselves through Iceland and the circumstances are often challenging.”
Sigurgeir says this experience is changing. “I remember when I first came to Dettifoss waterfall. You had to walk narrow paths to get close to it and it somehow helped you experience the greatness. It’s a different experience now when you drive a paved road all the way down,” he says.
“I have travelled a lot and one thing that makes Iceland so special is that you don’t have to drive for hours before you see the next spectacular place. It has a special dimension, a unique horizon and diversity you learn to appreciate when you travel in parts of the world.”