I just can’t figure out this seashore thing. This morning we didn’t have long to go to the sea because it’s right by our guesthouse, but that doesn’t help when the light doesn’t play nice. It was overcast with just a small gap which I thought might work, so at first I waited by the shore but when I realised I couldn’t find any foreground that I was happy with, I turned to the other direction and looked at the mountains instead and then waited again if that gap in the clouds would give me first light on the peaks. But after a while I gave up on that as well, there was no light and I was freezing in the wind. Lucky that the cabins were so close I could go inside in the warmth!

Snæfellsnes is a small enough peninsula to drive around it in a day, and do a lot of shooting along the way. Our first stop was in the highlands (which is actually no more than 200 MASL here) and although we didn’t get rained or snowed or hailed on, the light was a rare commodity again. I picked my spot, far away from the rest of the group as had become my habit during the week, and then waited. And waited. And waited. Finally there was just the slightest change, enough to bring out the colour in my foreground, and I took my pictures before time was up and we needed to move to a new spot. No idea what the others were shooting, it would be interesting to see if I missed something or if I gained by going my own way.

The next spot was better than the first one, the light was a bit so-and-so again but I went into a wideangle frenzy with this big rock field. I was already back in the car when I noticed that the light started changing in the mountains and when I saw that the other car wasn’t ready to leave yet, I grabbed my camera and shot some more frames. This is literally like 1-2 meters from the car!

Then we drove to Kirkjufell, which was probably the most talk-about topic on the whole vacation. I had no idea what to expect, but the people who had seen it were laughing about it. The thing is, this mountain has apparently been voted as a top-10 mountain in the world, so I was extremely curious to see what it’s about. When you approach the mountain, it’s just like any old boring mountain. But then right when you pass it (the road goes by it), it takes on a pointed profile instead. There’s a waterfall you can use as a foreground, but it’s difficult to hide the road and the buildings and the path that leads to the falls. And in this weather were had, I wouldn’t even put this in the top-50 mountains I’ve ever seen… however, when you google Kirkjufell and look at the pictures, you start to understand where the reputation comes from!

Our last stop was by the sea again and this was probably the low point of my whole vacation. I got seriously separated from the group, it isn’t a problem in that it wasn’t really possible to get lost so I could always find my way back to the car, but the problem was that I was in the wrong place as far as the most photogenic spots were concerned. So I needed to find my way down to the beach from the high cliffs I was standing on, and I thought I found a shortcut. But every shortcut I found just ended up in another cliff and at its closest I had probably like 2 meters to the beach, but it was straight down the cliff wall so I had to turn back again. I wasted half the evening on walking around and by the time I finally got to the beach, I was so mad at myself that the only real use I could think of for my tripod was to hit myself with it. I finally calmed down to shoot some frames but mentally I was in the wrong place so the opportunity was wasted. So glad that this wasn’t my last night in Iceland!