During my recent trip to Iceland, I visited the famous Hallgrímskirkja church in the center of Reykjavik. This church stands at 244 feet high and is the second tallest building in the country.

The Hallgrimskirkja church is a major tourist attraction. At any given time, there were nearly 100 people inside the church. It was impossible to capture any photographs of the interior (other than ceiling shots) under those circumstances.

While I was inside the church with the huge crowd of tourists, I concentrated on taking pictures of the ceiling. For this particular image, I used a fisheye lens. The fisheye lens captures a very wide perspective--nearly 180 degrees. So, I was having difficulty even getting this picture without people standing in the corner of the frame!

Someone helped me by asking some of the tourists to step back for a moment while I took the picture--so that I could get a clear view of the ceiling. Once I captured the image, a couple of tourists asked if they could view the picture. So, I showed it to them on the back of my camera.

One woman said, "My God, it's beautiful!" Then, the woman standing next to her said, "It looks like a cockroach". I had to laugh. In my mind, this picture will forever be remembered as "the beautiful cockroach".

Hallgrimskirkja ceilingCeiling of the Hallgrímskirkja church at Hallgrímstorg 1 in Reykjavik, Iceland on February 19, 2018