For her first book “Horses of Iceland,” published in 2019, Guadalupe Laiz spent hours, sometimes days, quietly photographing Icelandic horses in their natural environments. For her latest book, “In the Land of Fire and Ice” (Images Publishing), she took on a greater challenge: working with the farmers and families who share her love for Icelandic horses to bring the animals to iconic Icelandic sites to photograph them in the country’s most breathtaking landscapes. “Together we secured permits to close certain landscapes to tourists, allowing us to bring horses into pristine locations where they could move freely and naturally,” she says.

“The challenges were endless,” she admits. Icelandic weather is unpredictable and often brutal. She might secure a permit to bring horses to a glacier for the day, for example, and then weather conditions would obliterate those plans. But, “in this work, surrendering isn’t failure,” says Laiz. “It’s part of the process. Accepting that nature decides, that we’re not in control, is perhaps the most significant challenge of all—and the most beautiful lesson.” 

Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.