Mats Wibe Lund

The Norwegian photographer Mats Wibe Lund first came to Iceland in 1954 as a high school student. Over the next 12 years, he made some 25 trips to Iceland, working as a journalist and photographer. In 1964, he married an Icelandic woman, Arndís Ellertsdóttir, and after she completed her nursing education, they finally settled down permanently in Iceland. For many years, Mats owned and operated a large photo service company with nearly 20 employees, all the while traveling around the country taking photographs for his rapidly growing photo library. Today his extensive collection covers nearly the entire country, spanning towns, villages, farms, and abandoned farm sites, as well as photos of beautiful landscapes and daily life.

In autumn 2011, Mats and Arndís visited eleven member chapters of the Icelandic National League of North America and presented photos of Icelandic farms before the emigration. Each and every presentation was made accessible on his website, mats.photoshelter.com, where people can order prints or files for publication purposes.

With the help of his son Christopher, Mats is currently transferring the entire scanned library, totalling some 20,000 photos, to his website. Altogether, Mats has taken over 350,000 photos of Iceland. Christopher, a talented photographer in his own right who specializes in landscapes, features his work at chris.photoshelter.com.

If you are searching for photos of a specific location and don’t see them on Mats’ website, please send him an inquiry. He will reply as promptly as possible, and you will receive sample photos online. If Mats has not yet photographed the location, he will provide an estimate of the time and cost involved.

Contact Mats at: mats@mats.is