We already knew Iceland was a beautiful country, but photographer Andre Ermolaev makes it look like a work of art. Ermolaev photographs rivers flowing through the black volcanic sands of Iceland, and while his pictures may look like paintings, there is no manipulation involved. Sometimes the planet is really just that beautiful.

Ermolaev explains that the color in his photographs comes from dissolved minerals in the water that, for whatever reason, don’t mix as brooks flow into rivers and rivers flow into the sea. Here’s him describing the photo below:

A little bit upstream there is a yellow-colored brook flowing into the river, but yellow currents fail to mix with the main water flow.  One can estimate the scale judging by the car tracks that are clearly seen on the black sand. This is just a river, just a volcano, just our planet.

I’ve heard that a surprising number of people in Iceland believe in magic, and I think I can see why.