Iceland - Vik
Some mornings you get to a place to photograph and it seems that Mother Nature is in a cooperative mood. Other times, not so much. Then you’re left wondering what you did to piss her off. Our morning spent in Vik was the latter of the two. After our wanderings to the Westfjörds, Snaesfellsnes Peninsula, Reykjavik and Thingvellir, it was time to start the drive along the south coast and make our way back to the Sey∂isfjör∂ur area to end our trip. An obvious stop along the way was Vik and its black sand beach.
The early morning looked promising, with partly cloudy skies in the east and a favorable forecast for clearing skies after sunrise. Although things didn’t look so great in the direction we were hoping, those conditions afforded us an opportunity to at least begin making images.
Then the teasing began. I started out framing potential compositions and making images despite the lack of good lighting simply to have in mind what I’d like to do when the conditions improved. Then the waiting game began. The focus was on the off-shore rock formation that is supposed to be a troll that had lured a ship onto the ocean rocks, then frozen by the rising sun as the troll was pulling the ship to shore. Nature had its way with us, lightly illuminating the shore cliffs, but leaving the subject troll in darkness.
As it became obvious that Mother Nature was in a teasing mood and more clouds seemed to settle in, I directed my attention to what was most interesting in the landscape - the clouds over the ocean. They were constantly changing and were quite impressive.
After about half an hour or so of that, Mother Nature relented and starting shining some light on the cliffs (again). While still not fully illuminating the Troll and the captured ship, it was close enough, despite some ugly arranged clouds. (Again, MN messing with us.)
But I continued to work the scene, patiently waiting for bursts of sunlight to do their thing, taking advantage of spots that seemed interesting (at least the clouds overhead started to cooperate) and to change the framing of the image. With the rocks so far off-shore of the beaches, it was really hard to get a well composed image that included both the amazing black beach and the rocks.
For about 15 minutes the light finally started hitting the Troll and its companion and I photographed quickly. I stopped to swap a longer lens on the camera and started making more images.
Then the light disappeared after the first frame I had made with the longer lens. We waited, and waited and waited.
The clouds rolled in on the east and filled in the skies above. Messing with us yet again.
We were rightly convinced the skies were not going to clear again that morning (they didn’t for quite some time), so I made one more composition based not on light, but on the ethereal nature of the location.
And that was our morning in Vik. Another of the many teasing moments we had in Iceland.