From my visits in 2019 and 2024:
The road stretches endlessly ahead, a dark thread unraveling through a land sculpted by fire and ice. The air is crisp, tinged with the scent of salt and moss, and the wind hums a low, haunting tune as it rushes down from the glaciers. The blue lupinus flowers are blooming everywhere, making a carpet, contrasted by the golden sun. This is Iceland in the summer - a land of unbroken light, where the sun lingers at the horizon, painting the sky in hues of amber and violet. A place where solitude is vast, landscapes are boundless, and every frame tells a story of elemental power.
The Call of the Road
Photographing Iceland begins with the journey itself. The N1 Ring Road, a sinuous ribbon of asphalt, encircles the country like a guiding hand, leading wanderers through some of the most spectacular terrains on Earth. Here, the act of travel is an immersion - each mile reveals a new scene, shifting from vivid valleys to black deserts, from towering sea cliffs to glacial lagoons where icebergs drift like silent ghosts.
Pulling over onto a gravel road, camera in hand, the silence is almost overwhelming. Only the occasional call of an Arctic tern breaks the stillness. The road ahead bends towards the horizon, vanishing into a mirage of heat and light and mountains and snow. There is something magnetic about these open roads—an invitation to chase the unknown, to capture the perfect shot where the land meets the sky in a raw, untamed symphony. The only followers are again the noisy arctic terns over our heads.
The Dance of Light and Shadow
In the heart of Iceland’s summer, the sun never truly sets. Instead, it hovers, casting an ethereal glow over the land. Golden hour stretches impossibly long, the sky a shifting canvas of deep blues, fiery oranges, and the soft blush of twilight. This light - so rare, so otherworldly - defines photography here.
A photographer waits by the edge of Jökulsárlón, the great glacial lagoon. Icebergs, freshly calved from the massive Vatnajökull Glacier (funny, the Icelandic pronunciation is Vatnajoekutell) , drift towards the sea, their surfaces illuminated by the setting sun. The contrast is staggering—emerald blue ice against volcanic black sands. Each shape, each crack, tells the story of a slow-moving time, a frozen relic of centuries past. At Reynisfjara the black basalt is bold and direct.
At Kirkjufell, Iceland’s most photographed mountain, the falls rush in the foreground as the mountain rises like a sentinel beyond. The long exposure captures the silky movement of water and clouds, a stark contrast to the unwavering stillness of the peak. Here, the challenge isn’t finding a subject - it’s deciding which breathtaking composition to frame. Many photographers, many landscape hunters, each with different photo outcome. It's just magical.
The Elements in Motion
Iceland is a land of movement. Waterfalls plunge from basalt cliffs with deafening force. Geysers erupt in rhythmic pulses, exhaling steam into the cold air. Glaciers creak and groan, their ancient ice slowly yielding to the warmth of the earth beneath. The formed waves are gigantic and breathtaking. This is a place where the land is alive, restless, constantly evolving.
Standing before Skógafoss, the roar of water fills the senses. The mist rises, catching the light, forming rainbows that dance in the air. The gear gets wet, but it still works. Rainjacket is mandatory. This is what we come for. The sheer power of the falls is humbling, an unstoppable force carving its way through stone and time. The camera clicks, capturing the fleeting perfection of light and motion, an image that is gone the moment the shutter closes. And the waterflow is like perpetuum mobile. Constant flow from the snow and ice, towards the oceans. The curtain of the water from the foss will never be the same again. Cycle of water and life.
Silence and Space
There are places in Iceland where the world feels emptied of time. The Highlands, vast and untouched, stretch beyond sight, a monochrome dream of volcanic rock and glacial rivers. You can touch the volcanoes raw force between Myvatn and Egilstadir. Suddenly, a big waterfall appear on your left. Few meters forward, a parking lot. You grab the camera and return. It is so mesmerising, you completely forgot to lock the car. In the East fjords, lonely roads snake between fjords where no sound exists but the wind and the distant crash of waves.
Here, photography becomes an act of reverence. The lens captures not just landscapes, but the profound sense of isolation, the rawness of a place still ruled by nature. There is an unshakable feeling of being small, of standing at the edge of something eternal.
The Final Frame
Iceland is not a place that gives up its secrets easily. It is a land that demands patience, resilience, and an openness to the unexpected. Storms roll in without warning, light changes in an instant, and roads disappear into mist. Yet, for the photographer who embraces its wild heart, Iceland offers images that transcend mere pictures -they become memories etched in light and shadow, stories of a land that remains one of the last great frontiers of the world.
As the road unwinds back towards Reykjavik, the journey lingers. The cold air, the golden light, the endless sky—these things stay with you, long after the shutter has closed. Sometimes I feel, that when I leave this beautiful island, my photography passion stays there, waiting my return.
Once, I had a dream to live on that Iceland. Hard decisions, choices. But I don't regret anything. Instead I want to return again. And again. And again. Do you want to join me?
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