Faroe Islands Adventure: How to Make Expert Photos on Sandoy
My Faroe Islands adventure included photographing the huge Skopun mailbox on Sandoy.
Are you ready for a Faroe Islands adventure? A recognized hotspot for enthusiastic landscape, wildlife and travel photographers, here’s some useful tips to ensure you produce some really expert photos from your own Faroe Islands adventure.
A Faroe Islands adventure offers a sublime travel experience. Located in the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland, Scotland and Norway, this beautiful island chain offers the intrepid traveller picturesque landscapes, fantastic hiking, remote fishing villages, wonderful birdwatching and a range of unexpected and often quirky photo opportunities.
And that’s certainly the case for the Island of Sandoy, pictures from which, including the massive mailbox showcased upon, are featured throughout this post.
Covering an area of 125 square km (48 square miles) Sandoy, literally Sand Island, is the fifth largest island within the Faroe Islands archipelago.
Picturesque and sparsely populated, the 2020 census recorded the population of Sandoy at 1,231 people. That’s significantly less than the approximately 6,900 sheep on the island.
Regarded as the best island for agriculture in the Faroe Islands, due to it’s fertile and sandy soil, Sandoy is significant for it’s range of breeding seabirds, including the following:
Atlantic puffins (70,000 pairs)
European storm petrels (50,000 pairs)
Northern fulmars (50,000 pairs)
Manx shearwaters (5,000 pairs)
Black guillemots (400 pairs)
European shags (150 pairs)
Eurasian whimbrels (150 pairs)
Great skuas (15 pairs).
Skopun, Faroe Islands: One Big, Blue and Beautiful Mailbox
During my travels I’ve discovered visually interesting mailboxes in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors. They’re often unique and, in their own way, quite special.
The biggest I’ve seen, thus far, and a former holder of the title of the world’s largest mailbox is the one featured in this post.
I refer to it as Big Blue. It’s a significant landmark in the town of Skopun, on the island of Sandoy, which I explored for two wonderful days as part of a longer journey throughout the fabulous Faroe Islands.
The structure stands at 7.42 meters in height and 4.45 meters in width. It’s a non functioning mailbox which, with the decline of snail mail over the years, is probably no big deal.
Nonetheless, I can imagine how much fun it would be for a child to post a letter into a mailbox as big and bold as the one in Skopun.
Is Big Blue a visual delight or an architectural monstrosity? I suspect opinions vary on that subject.
Either way, there’s no denying that it’s big and it’s blue, and I had a lot of fun photographing it.
It’s also one of those structures that, if ever you find yourself in the village of Skopun, you’ll want to take a look at. Even if it’s just on a drive by.
Skopun, Faroe Islands: How to Get There
Skopun is a pretty, harbor village in the north of Sandoy Island. I found myself in Skopun after taking the ferry there from Gamlarætt, near the capital, Tórshavn on Streymoy Island.
The ferry provides an interesting and scenic alternative for the transportation of passengers and their vehicles onto Sandoy.
However, most folks choose to take the new underwater tunnel that links the islands of Sandoy and Streymoy. It’s simply quicker and cheaper to do so.
What’s more, there’s no need to queue in line and then drive onto and off the ferry.
I found it an interesting experience to do so but, given the choice, I feel most folks would prefer to drive directly to Sandoy via the 10.8 km (6.7 mile) subsea Sandy tunnel.
Also known as Sandoyartunnilin, the Sandoy tunnel runs between Gamlarætt and Traoa Traðardalurar, near Inni í Dal stadium in central Sandoy.
How To Photograph the Skopun Mailbox
The photo at the top of this post was made to provide a relatively accurate representation of what you might expect to see if you found yourself in front of the giant Skopun letterbox.
I made the photo with my full frame Sony camera at 1/500 second, at an ISO of 400.
Choosing an aperture of f/11, to achieve a relatively large depth of field, I used my Sony 24-70 mm f/4 lens at 70 mm, which is considered to be a slight telephoto (i.e., telescopic) focal length.
Because the 70 mm focal length causes a slight magnification of the subject on the camera’s sensor, I had to move backwards to fit the letterbox into the frame.
While the result is quite realistic, there’s a slight foreshortening associated with the mild, 70 mm telephoto focal length.
You might like to think of this foreshortening as providing an impression of compression, where the perception of distance between foreground and background appears closer than it is in reality.
By compressing space within the photo viewer’s attention becomes more focused on the primary subject matter within the frame, making it more prominent in the image.
Photographing the huge Skopun mailbox in a way that accentuates visual perspective.
Faroe Islands Adventure: Changing Perspective
After making a relatively straightforward image of the giant Skopun mailbox I decided, for the purposes of teaching, that a more dramatic rendering would be appropriate.
I moved my zoom lens to a focal length of 24 mm and moved in very close to the structure to make the photo directly above.
Considered by many as a classic wide-angle focal length, 24 mm allows you to stand back from the world and fit a lot of information into the frame.
That’s how most folks use wide-angle lenses.
But for me, it’s much more fun to play with perspective by moving in close when making photos with a wide-angle focal length lens.
Notice how much taller and, looking at the bottom of the structure, how much wider the mailbox appears. That’s a direct consequence of moving in close and photographing with a wide angle lens.
What’s more, by getting down on my haunches and making the photo from a lower angle of view, you’ll notice how the Skopun mailbox appears to have been stretched, with the edges of the structure no longer appearing parallel to each other.
It’s a great example of the kind of fun you can have with a wide-angle lens, when making photos from a distance that’s close to your subject.
Furthermore, it’s good to remember that photography, as art, is rarely about making absolutely photo realistic representations of reality.
“Your journey as an individual, creative being is not so much about what you see, but about how you feel about what you see.”
Whether you opt for a relatively realistic or more visually dynamic rendering of what’s in front of your camera’s lens is up to you.
It might well be that you’d prefer a more visually dynamic rendering of the subjects or scenes you most often photograph.
One way to achieve that is to embrace a somewhat skewed or warped perspective in the photos you create.
Both of these preferences are fine and perfectly acceptable.
Indeed, each option has its advantages over the other, depending upon what you’re trying to communicate and, ultimately, whether or not your audience considers the resulting image to be successful.
About To Travel?
Does Skopun Have the World’s Largest Mailbox?
I do like to have a bit of an idea about what a location offers, particularly in relation to photo opportunities, before I arrive.
Choosing the right time of day, or the most appropriate weather, can make a big difference when it comes to creating really expert photos on any travel adventure.
But when it comes to historical facts or whimsical details, I tend to follow that up at a later stage, after the photos have been made.
As a case in point, I drove right past the giant Skopun mailbox without even knowing it existed.
Fortunately, it caught my eye and I immediately knew I wanted to photograph it. The photos I created, and the way I went about doing so, became the basis of this post.
But when it came to writing the post, I decided that some extra research was required. After all, I needed to find out if the Skopun mailbox was the largest one in the world.
That led me to search for the biggest mailbox in the world. And this is what I learned.
By the way, given bigger is better, have you ever wondered where the largest letterbox in the world is located?
Well, research tells me that the small town of Casey in Illinois, with a population of around 2,700 people, was recognized by the Guinness Book Of Records as having the world's largest letterbox.
Measuring a massive 154 cubic metres, it's a fully functional letterbox that, in addition to being a tourist attraction, remains in use today by the local folks of Casey.
Incidentally, did you know that the first mailbox sanctioned by the United States Postal Service was patented by Albert Potts on March 9, 1858?
While small in size, it was designed for public use.
I’m sure you’ve discovered mailboxes of particular merit or visual appeal on your own perambulations around our world.
It’s one of those quirky things that many of us enjoy discovering, by chance, as we wander around on photo walks in neighborhoods.
Wooden interior of the Church Of Sandur on Sandoy straightened in Lightroom.
How To Make Expert Photos With Straight Lines
When you stand close to an object that’s much taller than you it’s inevitable that you’ll tilt your camera backwards so as not to chop the top of the structure off in your photo.
The problem is that, by titling your camera, it’s no longer parallel to the object you’re photographing.
The more you tilt your camera backwards the greater the tilt of the structure will appear in your photo.
Assuming you don’t like this effect, there are two ways to straighten the image you’re making.
The first method, which I employed in the interior photo of the altar at the Church of Sandur on Sandoy Island, is really straightforward to do.
Simply walk back until you can hold your camera parallel to the scene you’re photographing and, if need be, zoom in to achieve optimal framing.
If you think about it, the further back you go the less you’ll have to tilt the camera to fit the top of the structure into your photo.
You don’t have to be climbing a hill but, from the camera’s point of view, the further back you go the higher your camera’s lens is in relation to the structure you’re photographing.
Amazing! And if you don’t find that an absolute revelation, please go back and re-read the previous three paragraphs.
Church of Sandur, on Sandoy Island, part of my Faroe Islands adventure.
How To Straighten Vertical Lines On A Computer
It was a challenge to make this outdoor view of the lovely wooden Church of Sandur on the island of Sandoy in the Faroe Islands.
It’s a lovely example of traditional Faroese church architecture, with black tarred walls topped by a turf roof and a white belfry.
Faced with so many vertical lines, many of them not parallel to each other, I had to decide which lines needed to be straight to make a successful photo.
To do so, I based my composition around keeping the white belfry, and the black outside wall at the other end of the church, relatively straight and parallel to each other.
It made sense to embrace the variations in vertical lines throughout the rest of image, particularly those of the three white gravestones in the foreground.
The fact that those gravestones are tilted speaks to the age of the cemetery and the history of this small and isolated Faroese town.
While it’s your decision whether you adjust vertical lines or not, they are an important consideration in a lot of architectural photography.
If you do, try and correct the verticals you can in camera or, alternatively, on the desktop.
While you’ll develop a preference for one method or the other, it’s a good idea to incorporate both approaches into your skill set and associated workflow.
From time to time, you’re find that you’re either unable or unwillingly to move backwards to try and straighten important vertical lines in camera.
When that happens simply photograph the structure, accepting any resulting distortion, but be sure to leave plenty of space around it.
That’s because, when an image is straightened during post processing, you inevitably lose some of it through cropping.
And remember, the more you tilt your camera backwards the greater the distortion is likely to be.
As a consequence, the greater the distortion the more space you’ll need to leave around the structure to ensure you can straighten it without chopping off the top.
Cropping on the desktop usually works just fine, though it can be a little hit and miss.
So, please ensure you’re not too conservative when it comes to leaving space around buildings, bridges, statues and other architectural subject matter when composing your photos.
Once you have your image you can employ software such as Lightroom (i.e., Transform panel in the Develop module) or Photoshop to adjust vertical lines so, once again, they’ll appear straight.
Easy!
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Faroe Islands Adventure and More Expert Photos
Would you like some help gaining control over your camera?
Perhaps you’d like to learn how to use Lightroom to lift the quality of your photos to the next level.
I run private, one-to-one photography courses for folks who live in and around Melbourne, Australia. Feel free to contact me for all the details.
Alternatively, if you’d like to learn more about how to use perspective to improve the photos you make, check out my post titled Viewpoint and Perspective: How to Win with Great Composition.
In the meantime, I’m sure there’s plenty of interesting letterboxes in your own neck of the woods that would be fun to photograph.
If all goes well, you could put the best images together in an online portfolio or as a chapter in a photo book featuring some of your creative projects.
Do remember that opportunities for creative photography projects are everywhere. And it all starts by getting up, picking up your camera and getting outside into the light.
