Talking with Andrija Ilic
Good morning my friend! It’s the first Tuesday of April, and like it happens every month it’s time for a new Inside the Photo. I’m thankful for all the support you always show to my articles and I’m happy to share with you every month the work of amazing photographers from around the world.
My guest today is Andrija, currently living and working in the Faroe Islands.
Over the past three decades, my photography journey has taken me from the turbulent years in former Yugoslavia and Serbia into the Middle East, including work connected to war stories and photojournalism in conflict environments. Those experiences shaped how I see — not only technically, but emotionally. Photography became more than a craft; it became a responsibility and a purpose: to document moments honestly and preserve them for future generations.
The shift toward landscape photography came gradually, eventually leading me to the Faroe Islands — a place where weather, terrain, and light constantly redefine the scene. Living and working here, I combine decades of photographic experience with deep local knowledge of geography, light patterns, and changing conditions. Today, that experience translates directly into my photo tours and workshops, where I guide photographers through the islands with intention — helping them move beyond chance encounters and toward strong, well-earned images.
Andrija’s work is a tribute to the harsh beauty of the place he lives in. If you have a deep look at his images you can see how incredible Earth can be. There’s always a special light in his images, colors are deep and intense. I can spend hours watching his pictures, trying to feel the wind on my face, to smell the salty air at the top of a mountain, to hear the sound of Nature around me.
Walk on the Edge of the Earth – © Andrija Ilic
This photo I call “Walk on the Edge of the Earth”, and it was made on Kalsoy Island. It’s one of those iconic Faroe scenes that many photographers dream of capturing — with the layered cliffs of a few islands, the sea stacks, and the small human figure giving scale to the landscape. The composition feels almost unreal — for us photographers, it’s such a playful and grateful scene, a scene with so many details in perfect balance, and one that gives you endless possibilities to play with. This is also why some people think it’s fake or AI-generated. But this image is very real. I had a photo like this in my head for a long time, ever since I saw this place for the first time, and I made many attempts to capture it exactly the way I wanted — and I kept failing. Low visibility, no visibility, no hikers — but I kept returning again and again.
Getting to Kalsoy Island is not simple — it’s an adventure that takes an entire day. You have to pre-book a small ferry that runs only a few times a day, and if the weather turns bad, you can easily find yourself stuck there for the most part of the day, like I did many times. The tricky part for me was always predicting the exact forecast, because it’s not only about the weather where I’m standing on Kalsoy, but also where my view stretches over several other islands in front of me. I was tricked by this many times and ended up traveling to Kalsoy just to sit in fog for hours, with no visibility at all. Altogether, I went there six times trying to get this photo. Only twice did I have a real shot at it. One of those attempts gave me a result I liked — a strong image made in broad daylight — impressive as it was, but deep inside I always wanted this scene with sunset tones.
Every year, this was the photo I really wanted to end the year with. During one of my photo tours, I had two inspiring photographers from Australia with me. As photographers usually do, we were talking only about photography, and at some point this image came up in the conversation. Suddenly, the idea was born — let’s go and try to make it. I pointed out the risk of not getting anything at all and possibly wasting an entire day without a photo. Reaching this place requires traveling from Tórshavn across several islands, catching a small pre-booked ferry, driving to the end of Kalsoy, and then doing the hike. If the weather doesn’t work, there is simply nothing you can do. Still, they agreed, and we decided to go for it. In the end, we even stayed the night out there — literally sleeping on the rocks — just to give ourselves more time and a better chance.
And then that evening, everything fell into a perfect balance. The visibility was great, the air was clear, and the light slowly moved from afternoon tones into sunset and then into the golden hour, before fading toward dusk. There was activity all around — hikers crossing the ridge, birds flying through the scene. As you might know, a photo like this doesn’t always come from a single shot. It’s usually the best pick from a small series, or sometimes from many more. That evening, I had two cameras with two different lenses, and I made a great number of images I was truly happy with — such an exciting process of framing something you really wanted to have. It felt like a photographer’s zen.
In the end, the effort paid off. There was a lot of desire and commitment behind this photo. Achieving this image helped shape my vision of how I want to continue developing my photography work — returning to the scenes I know well, learning them better, trying new techniques, new ideas and solutions, and capturing them in very specific light and mood. Most of the time I come back empty-handed, but every once in a while everything aligns — and that’s when the magic happens.
What an amazing story. This clearly describes how much work, failures and consistency there’s behind a shot. Landscape and nature photography is not just going for a walk and grab some shots of a place. It has to be intentional. You need planning, as well as deep knowledge of the location you want to photograph.
Here are Andrija’s social links. I recommend you check them out for more stunning images.
Website
Instagram
Vero
Facebook
LinkedIn
Thanks a lot for sharing this story with us, my friend!
Take care and talk soon!