Ragnar Axelsson, also known as RAX, is an Icelandic photographer who was born in 1958. He is a staff photographer for Morgunblaðið and mbl.is and has also shot numerous freelance projects for magazines and had exhibitions all over the world. Most recently, he took the new Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246) for 80 hours all over Iceland.

" All the images were taken in early April in Iceland. My work as a photographer in the subarctic regions depends very much on the weather and, in a way, I went out to capture the life on the island in a certain kind of weather," explains Rax in an interview with Leica on the Leica blog. "According to the weather forecast a blizzard was underway and would even cause serious problems on mountain roads. But in April it gets brighter every evening very quickly, so the interplay of light and darkness alongside this dramatic weather interested me. I drove around the island in 80 hours and met some people on the way, but because of the storm they were few and far between. There were, however, lots of animals around, horses grassing as the Icelandic horses can do all year round or simply waiting for the storm to calm down. On a farm, the sheep were fed and as I approached a river, I saw a stoic seal that simply expected no harm from humans. I crossed mountain roads in the middle of the blizzard and then got back home, overwhelmed with joy as I had such fun with the camera."

The Leica M Monochrom only takes black-and-white images. " My passion lies in black-and-white photography," explains Rax. My photography books are dominantly in black-and-white. I see my work as a string of images in black-and-white. That does not mean that I am not shooting pictures in color – I actually do that a lot – but I prefer photographing in black-and-white. I always say that everything that looks good in color looks even greater in black-and-white. When photographing in color I use my Leica M-P (Type 240) or a DSLR. When I work in black-and-white, I use film cameras like my Leica M6, Linhof 6×12 and Mamiya 7; I rarely use them for color.

"I have always liked photographing in bad weather, but there are many degrees of bad and the Arctic is not the most forgiving environment when it comes to photography. These circumstances need special precautions and the biggest problems are the batteries. I keep them inside my jacket as long as I can and they don’t last long in temperatures far below freezing. It is sometimes strange to go to sleep in a tent on the Arctic ice shelf in a sleeping bag filled with batteries to keep them warm. The Monochrom worked fine in the cold. It was -10 degrees Celsius and with the wind chill it was around -18 degrees Celsius."

See the full interview HERE.