Photography #15 – Mountains, coasts and lights in the sky (Iceland, day 3 continued...)

So this is still day 3...much of the day was spent travelling in our trusty Dacia Duster (with occasional breaks for photography!). I pick up the story where I left off in the last Iceland post. We are travelling East and then South on road 1, to the mountains and coasts...

The views from the car window were beautiful - desolate and majestic at the same time

Unfortunately, we had to make up a lot of progress fast, due to our morning of sightseeing up North, so my photographic stops heading East were limited to quick snaps from a moving car. I do not have many photos (of this part of the journey) that are good enough for this blog post but they are still good enough to serve as inspiration and reference material for my paintings!

We approached the mountains of the South-east as the sun was low, and this, together with the dramatic clouds, provided some great opportunities for photos (many of these were also taken from a moving vehicle)...

Road 1, just after a coffee stop in Egilsstadir, with the wind-blown mountaintops in sight

No time to stop! With only a couple of hours before sunset, we need to get to our cabin in Stafafell, so I'm leaning out of the window taking photos as we go...

Riding along the Fagridalur pass, the lighting and clouds are being kind to me

Here we stop to stretch our legs for 5 minutes,
just before we turn South at Reydarfjordur

Sights like this are commonplace along our route, but
with the light rapidly fading, I catch only a few

Dramatic backlighting as the sun starts to dip behind the mountains.
Soon we will see it again on the other side

I could have happily stayed for hours in this valley,
or any one of the others along this stretch of the coast

After a mountain tunnel, we emerge to see Faskrudsfjodur, with Skrudur Island in the distance

The view South-west after we turn the corner and head towards Stodvarfjordur. This was to be our last stop in daylight. We arrived at our cabin, tired and hungry, a couple of hours later

After unpacking for the night, and having a much needed meal to soothe everyone's weary bones and minds, we settled down for a coffee. My friend Carl calls us to the window! The clouds are clearing and the aurora has come out to say hello! I have never seen aurora before and we spend the next hour or so outside in the cold, looking for breaks in the cloud.

My camera is not equipped with a long exposure (6 seconds was best I could achieve) and this was my first attempt at aurora photography! Not quite up to the standard of some but I'm happy enough with the results...

The view behind our cabin that night - I had to enhance this quite a bit in photoshop after our trip. I think I still need a bit of practice, lol...

At 11pm Carl and I decide we need to head back East to find more breaks in the cloud. Finally, we get this sight close to midnight...

On the way back, we drive past a wild reindeer! I have no photo of that as my batteries had died. An amazing end to a very long and amazing day, full of incredible sights. I think, if I were to ever repeat this trip, I would definitely break this day into two and have a cabin mid-way somewhere in the East of Iceland.

We head off to bed with auroras and reindeer in our heads, eager for day 4...
Adam