This January (2014) my wife and I went chasing the Northern Lights on an Iceland mini break. Obviously I took my camera with me along with all the necessary paraphernalia for an amateur photographer. We were based in Reykjavik and spent the first day exploring the colourful city but man, it was cold in the wind!
Reykjavik is right on the coast and was founded when Ingólfur Arnarson landed in 871AD. The main shopping street is close the sea front and you get these fantastic views of the sea and snow-covered mountains looking down the side streets as you can see to the right. This photo was taken at 11:35 and as you can see it is not fully light yet.
As Iceland is located at 64 to 66 degrees latitude it does not get much day light in the winter. While we were there sunrise was about 11:15 and sunset was about 15:00, both of which happened very, very slowly with the sun only just getting fully above the horizon.
I am not sure if it was because of the long dark hours but the shops didn’t seem to open very much either with not many people on the main shopping street at this time of day. It wasn’t because it was cold either as the temperature was around 0 – 3°C, except when you were in the wind when it was seemingly -20°C!
The Icelandic scenery is absolutely stunning to look at and below is a gallery of some photographs from around Reykjavik and its surrounding mountains.
Here are some panoramas taken from the top of Hallgrímskirkja church which is a spectacular piece of architecture and one of the highest places in the city.
All these panoramas were taken on my iPhone and edited on my iPad using iPhoto.
Unfortunately the northern lights did not perform for us due to the clouds on the first night and despite there seeming to be a clear sky on the second night all tours were cancelled so we never did get to see them. However, we did the golden circle tour on the second day on I took some more photos from the various locations we visited so be sure to check out my other posts.
Happy shooting,
Chris Tall.