Blahnukur Sunset 9
Posted onAs my regular readers will note, I experienced mostly gloomy weather during my trip to Iceland. While the bad weather did nothing to overcome my Seasonal Affective Disorder, it did provide me with some incredible lighting conditions for landscape photography. The highlight of my trip was camping and shooting for 4 days at Landmannalaugar. I was disappointed that the colorful hills were covered in ash from the recent eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, but their was still plenty of spectacular scenery to shoot everywhere I looked. I explored the main hiking trails from the campground and became particularly enchanted with the geothermal steam vents at the base of Brennisteinsalda. I returned to this surreal location 2 nights in a row and was rewarded with this dramatic image when the clouds parted and the sun illuminated the summit of Blahnukur in golden light.
Nice greens for sure, Jon! Really love the contrast of all the elements in here, from popping greens, over a warm light to a dramatic sky. I think you covered all important elements for great landscape photography in this one composition.
David
I’ve read that the most pleasing colors for artists are blue, green, & white. This patch of green lichen growing around the steam vents was a pleasant surprise amongst the lava desolation.
Dynamic scene, Jon. Iceland seems like an intriguing place that I’ll have to consider if I decide to start traveling overseas.
What an amazing location! Gorgeous shot! Is it HDR?
Richard-Iceland is definitely worth a visit. There is a direct flight from Seattle. It is only 7.5 hours. The landscape is stark & the conditions are tough, but it is a very rewarding place to shoot if you put in the time.
Heather-I am a big advocate of only shooting 1 image of natural scenes & wild animals with little manipulation. I appreciate what other photographers can do with HDR, but I do not use that technique in order to maintain the highest ethical standards for submitting my work to natural history publications. I only used a Singh-Ray 3-stop Hard Graduated Neutral Density filter to balance the foreground exposure with the mountain & clouds above.
A stunning shot!
Very very nice Jon. The ruggedness of the landscape comes through nicely. Good to see that there are still some photographers who wield filters well around.