For my first post in this community, I wanted to share my experience about a specific day that happened in my trip to Iceland in March 2017. I was travelling with my girlfriend in a rental van from Happy Campers and Gatklettur was the second stop of our trip around the island. We hadn't slept a lot because we did not want to miss the auroras on our first night so I was still pretty tired. We woke early after maybe 3 hours of sleep to get there in time for the rising sun. I had checked a bit online beforehand to have an idea of what there was to see in the area.
7:19AM: The area was nice and I started taking pictures. Took the first few shots in portrait orientation and started playing with the exposure time to try to find the best combination.
At the specific time and place, I found that an exposure of about half a second was giving me a nice movement in the waves while they were crashing on the rocks. I spent a few more minutes trying to find the perfect splash. I was kind of sad that the sky was bland.
Most of the time, what makes for a great landscape picture is having your subject framed with a perfect balance of clouds and sunlight popping through.
7:24AM: Soon there was a bit of sunlight coming through and the colors started to change to a warmer feel. I really liked what I seeing on my LCD screen and it would have been fine with me. I already had some great shots that I was happy with.
7:27AM: Since I was already happy with the pictures that I had, I started looking around for some other interesting things to shoot. This was shot just a few steps from where I was but facing the other way.
7:50AM: There was also this little house all alone by itself close to the cliffs. It seemed like it could eventually fall into the sea over time with all the storms and the erosion.
8:03AM: Decided to try to capture the same house but with a longer lens. I wanted to use the compression of a telephoto to give the impression that the house was much closer to the water than what it was in reality and that it was also smaller in comparison with the mountains that were far behind. I don't usually use longer lens when doing landscape photography, but I felt that this would work in this particular moment and I think it does.
8:16AM: I was about to leave the area thinking that I had some good shots... but a better sky would have been great to start with. Suddenly, the sun started to peek through the clouds on the horizon, so I came back with my first subject and experimented some more settings while the waves kept on crashing on the rocks...
8:22AM:Since the sky was getting really interesting I decided to push my luck a little and climbed down the steep cliff to try to get a better point of view. My girlfriend was a bit worried about the idea because apparently that there were warning signs everywhere in the area but i reassured her that I would be cautious.
8:27AM: Finally, at some point, the sun blasted it's rays of light only for a few brief moments while I was on the shore. The timing, the point of view, the experience, everything was perfect. I left the area after that thinking to myself that I had almost missed that opportunity because I wanted to leave a few minutes earlier. To this day, this picture is still one of my favorite. After that day, I always stayed a little longer... just in case.
These are awesome. Such a cool location. Your patience paid off because that last picture is amazing.
Yes it did. It is also the picture that I use on my business cards as well.
It was in March when we went there and the weather was kinda warm for the period. We averaged something like 5 degrees during the day. We really want to go back during summertime and probably another time in spring.
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
stunning pictures ❤
Thank you very much. I have a lot more to publish but will try to post every few days. I wanted to make a daily post but it is really time consuming... much more than i thought it will be :)
If people like and comments those posts, it will surely help with the motivation :)
Sure it does that was my motivation too 😄
Just keep it up! I'm sure they would love it .
Keep up the good work! I really like it and a lot of other people here on HIVE do as well, I am certain of it indeed! :)
These are truly astonishing and awesome photographs! Thank you very much for sharing! You are a very talented, technical, and hard working photographer! Keep up the good work!
P.S.: What a quaint placing of a house near those cliffs... I wonder who would want to live there. I bet that there is no one else in its proximity. Either way, just like the photograph depicting it, the house is beautiful as well! :)
My sweetie and I are longing for a place like that... as long as we can get internet. :)
Thank you very much for the compliments. Will try to post every few days but we have someone new in the family (a kitty) so I'll have to take care of it for a few days.
Incredible photographs!!!, you captured the sunlight very well in the arch of the rock.
Thank you, it was a mix of luck and preparation. I knew that the sun was coming from that side but didn't know it was going to be in that exact spot at that time and I was lucky that the clouds let the sun get through at that exact moment.
Phenomenal photographs. If the shutter speed can be longer a liltle bit, it gonna be perfect.
It is perfect for me. I tried different speeds but in the end, this was my favorite. I guess it depends on the mood. Sometimes I do take much longer shots using a neutral density filter.
Amazing shots, it looks great.
I'm Emmanuel also a photographer.
If you don't mind, can I know the camera you used? And was the shots later edited?
Thank you!
I used a Nikon D800. What I like about Nikon is that they have a wider dynamic range and it is perfect for that kind of shot. Since I shot in RAW, I have to edit all the images that I take otherwise they would be flat. But this was taken with a single exposure. I edited the RAW in lightroom.
Great, I love your work keep it up
Best regards @emma-maku
Absolutely gorgeous shot! Those of us in the know understand that you sometimes take hundreds or even thousands of photos before getting that one incredible photo worthing of framing. Every so often the universe aligns to create that perfect moment for us to capture.
Absolutely. That is one thing that is great with digital cameras. You can take as many pictures as you want and you can correct the exposure, framing, etc. while you are still there.
Thank you and have a nice day. More coming tomorrow.