Ragnar Axelsson: Behind the Mountains

Every autumn, Icelandic farmers travel into the country’s interior to collect their sheep from the summer pastures. This process has remained unchanged for centuries and the search is still conducted primarily by horse or on foot. For the past 25 years, Icelandic photographer Axelsson (born 1958) has observed farmers on their roundups in one of the most difficult but also magnificent grazing terrains of the Icelandic wilderness. Axelsson has been a staff photographer for Iceland’s largest newspaper since 1976, and his stunning iconic images of the Arctic have earned him a worldwide reputation as a skilled documentary photographer. The photographs in Behind the Mountains, of sheep roundups in ravines and mountain hills, in wild snowstorms and rain, near glaciers and across rugged lava, paint a realistic and compelling picture of traditional farming and its interaction with the harsh landscape.