Edit2: Added larger 750px versions
Edit:(If anything disappears its mirrored on my Pblog
http://steveninn.tumblr.com/essays)
In the north there snakes a road skirting cliffs, deep valleys and pebble-filled shores. Kjaransvegur in the Westfjords of Iceland is not for the frail of heart or those without a sense of adventure. For those the road is terrifying, long and ardous but on the other hand it is undeniably an adventure whether you are a hitchhiker, native or a photographer. The namesake of the road (vegur = road | Kjaran = a male name) is undeniably connected to the making of it, as the name suits a certain Einar Kjaransson. Einar carved the road by himself as the outlying farms could only be reached by boats while the national road service (Vegagerðin) estimated the costs to be too high and the landscape too treacherous for any serious roadwork.
Road 622 was carved with a single bulldozer in the 70‘s. Petrol was provided by the outlying farms who could possibly make an economic recovery if the road was built. Almost every day Einar would fuel up his bulldozer nicknamed the Teaspoon (Teskeiðin) and carve the cliffs until he took his breaks or reached another valley etched in the plateu. When the road was completed a number of years later Einar was held in high honor among folk and his road was called a feat of engineering and iron will. Even though the road was completed many outlying farms were abandoned and now only two remain firmly seated for now on the southern side in Lokinhamradal, Arnafjörður.
These photographs roughly examine the desolation and ultimate demise of human settlement at the edge of the world that one man tried to change with his teaspoon.
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The road skirts inhospitable landscapes for almost sixty km"
"Cliffs loom over the road and sometimes send rocks crashing down"
"Svalvogar, Dýrafjörður. Sold and bought for 6M ISK in 2006, still deserted"
"Sheep holdings, Svalvogar"
"Ruined façade, Svalvogar"
"With farming now at 2% of the national workforce, desertions are numerous"
"Buckshot door, Svalvogar"
"Deserted wares and belongings"
"Eyðibýli, Arnafjörður"
"Arnafjörður"
"Apparition like scarecrows haunt the coast of west Arnafjörður"
"Abandoned boat, Arnafjörður"
"Birds, Arnafjörður"
"Gutted, Arnafjörður"
"Lone soles, Arnafjörður"
"Collapse, Arnafjörður"
"Ruins, Lokinhamradalur"
"Monolith, Svalvogar"
"One of the two remaining habitats in Lokinhamradalur."
"Kids running, Lokinhamradalur"
Social change has happened fast in the past 30 years in my country and this is only a tiny piece of the mosaic. It reflects what has been happening the last 10 years in migration and dwindling finances among those who choose to live outside the capital city (Reykjavik) and the southwest quarter of Iceland.
None of these ruins will be rebuilt or demolished for a long time. We ran out of money to do that.
