Reawakening
I’ve spent a good few years thinking about capturing this shot, here in Iceland. My limited time in the country, notoriously wild weather in the area and my workshop obligations, has made this an illusive image with several failed attempts. On this occasion though, everything came together. It was 3am, and after visiting some other great locations, I couldn’t resist another attempt at heading out here (despite being clouded over earlier on). To my surprise, the veil of cloud had lifted and after hiking down the moraine, we pleasantly discovered that a large calving had caused a huge surge of water, bringing dozens of clean icebergs right up to the shore. Not only did the aurora continue to flare and streak the sky, but the shallow water on the shoreline began to freeze over right before our eyes. In fact, the sheet ice in the foreground here didn’t even exist at all when we first arrived. I couldn’t have scripted a better set of circumstances. With the bright aurora and luminosity of the ice, the foreground through to the mountain was captured as a focus stack of 2 minute exposures, at f/8 and ISO 640. The sky was a faster exposure of 8 seconds, ISO 2000 f/2.8. Just the joy of being here with this alignment of elements was a real highlight for me.
South Coast, Iceland
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