The Traveler: John Piepkorn of Minnetonka.

The scene: This horse felt no qualms about checking out photographer John Piepkorn when he encountered the animal during a December 2017 trip to Iceland. "Icelandic horses are very inquisitive and friendly. If you stop and get out of your vehicle, the horses come up to check you out within a minute," Piepkorn wrote in an e-mail. "The horses spend most of their time outside, even in winter, so their coats get kind of shaggy, but the forelock on this horse was especially striking." The animals — generally small and very hardy — arrived in the northern island nation about 1,100 years ago with the first settlers from Norway.

Destination: Though Piepkorn visited Iceland in winter, he wrote, it was actually warmer there than in Minnesota during his trip. "It is an amazing country, and really compact (it's about half the size of Minnesota), so there are a lot of amazing things to see in a relatively small area," Piepkorn wrote. He noted waterfalls, geysers, the Blue Lagoon, a geothermic spa in a lava field, and the country's friendly horses.

Equipment: He shot this close-up using a Nikon D750 with a Tokina 17-35mm lens.

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