Witches Brew
I spent almost 2 weeks in Iceland with 6 friends: 5 of whom were not photographers. This meant that rather than following the weather, like I would have preferred, we followed our itinerary instead. Mama Nature had the perfect chance to attach a rope between our RV and the rain clouds and boy did she take advantage. It wasn’t until 9 days into our trip that I finally saw the sun. The first 8 days were filled with rain, fog, more rain, more fog, and grey grey sky. Fortunately the last 2 nights ended quite spectacularly.
There’s a few places in Iceland that photographers love and Kirkjufell Mountain is one of them. Of course it was high on my list of places to visit and we saved it for almost last. We arrived at Grundarfjörður, the town next to the mountain, parked the RV in their marina and made dinner. Dinner seemed to last for hours. Every few minutes I would get up, look at where the sun is, and say “guys, can we hurry up?!” Of course the non-photographers responded with “relax, it’ll be fine!”
Finally I jumped into the drivers seat, told everyone to hold on, and drove us over to the spot. Surprisingly, this view is right off the road (you can, in fact, see the road at the bottom of the mountain) and offers countless compositions. As we arrived though, the clouds started to thin out and it forced our compositions to move to the left, towards the 3-pronged waterfall and the bridge. Fortunately the sky lit up beautifully long enough for us to snap a few photos. About 20 minutes after this photo was taken, a marine layer moved in, the clouds disappeared, and the beautiful sunset was gone. Thanks, Mama Nature, for a yummy bit of dessert!
I loved the way the mountain looks like a witches hat while the waterfall and river brew below it.
Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
17mm, f/9, 1/6 sec, ISO 100
