Expecting the Unexpected

Gary Hart Photography: Bejeweled, Diamond Beach, Iceland

Bejewelled, Diamond Beach, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 24-105 f/4 G
ISO 50
f/18
1.6 seconds

Usually when you arrive at a scene you have a pretty good idea of the landscape features in store. There’s El Capitan, or the Wanaka Willow tree, or Deer Creek Fall, or any number of stationary landscape icons photographers flock to—your job is simply to find the best way to render this permanent beauty. To further assist the process, you can probably even tap your memory, mentally recalling hundreds (thousands?) of prior images taken by others visiting this very spot. Photographing these locations isn’t necessarily easy, but it’s usually relatively straightforward.

On the other end of the spectrum are those scenes that surprise you every time, scenes so changeable they require eyes-on to figure out what’s going on this time before making your plan for photographing it.

That’s the way I feel every time I visit Diamond Beach in Iceland (Breiðamerkursandur for short). The first time I photographed here I was completely dazzled by the collection of jewel-like ice chunks embedded in jet black sand and continuously rearranged by churning surf. Some of these sparkling jewels were as large as cars, others were no bigger than small shards of glass.

Having previously viewed many Diamond Beach images, most with some version of motion-blurred waves sweeping around an ice chunk (or chunks), I immediately set out to attempt my own version of those tried-and-true standards. Easier said than done.

It turns out the moving water also moves the ices, so finding the shutter speed fast enough to anchor the ice yet long enough to blur the water, then timing the shutter click for the ideal water blur with the least ice blur is a real challenge. Worse still, you’re trying to do all this while keeping a vigilant eye on the frigid (and aggressive) North Atlantic surf. Between the shifting ice and constant assaults from waves, it’s nearly impossible to stay in one location long enough to really work a shot the way I like to.

Don Smith and I do at least one Iceland workshop each winter, so the following year, armed with this wealth of prior knowledge, I returned with a plan—only to be quickly reminded that Nature hates plans. And with each visit in subsequent years I’ve come to learn that no two Diamond Beach experiences are the same, varying tremendously with the tide, surf, and (a recent insight) amount of ice on the beach.

Last year the surf was so extreme that no one in our workshop group even ventured onto the beach, remaining content instead with more distant (longer focal length) captures from atop the rise just above the beach. So imagine the surprise when, despite our extreme caution, 3 people in the group were knocked down and drenched by a rogue wave that defied our most dire expectations, charging up the beach and onto our “safe” perch faster than they could retreat.

This year Don and I did two Iceland workshops and again encountered something new at Diamond Beach: (virtually) no ice. We learned that extreme cold had prevented calving from nearby Vatnajökull Glacier and rendered Glacier Lagoon unphotographable for our first group. Fortunately, at nearby Diamond Beach that group found a smattering of ice, just enough to photograph.

Our second group got more ice in Glacier Lagoon—not a lot, but enough to enjoy a couple of nice shoots there—but no ice actually on Diamond Beach. After first deciding Diamond Beach would be a complete swing and miss, Albert Dros (our group’s Iceland guide) and I explored and found a handful of microwave-size and smaller ice cubes high and dry on the platform above the beach (deposited I suspect by extreme surf at high tide).

While the group filed out of the bus and bundled up against a light rain, Albert and I picked up several of the larger (surprisingly heavy) ice chunks and relocated them into the surf so they could at least get their classic Diamond Beach blurred surf images. It actually worked out surprisingly well and we ended up shooting there for more than an hour, until the rain picked up and drove us back to the bus.

I guess the lesson here is the need for resourcefulness, and the importance of adjusting to the conditions you’re dealt rather than trying to force something that isn’t there, or simply throwing up your hands and moving on.

The image I share today came from the first workshop, when there was a little ice on the beach, but still less than I’d ever seen. We came for sunrise and arrived early enough to be the first on the beach. Everyone quickly spread out, some staying relatively close to the bus where there was a good assortment of surf-swept smaller ice. A few of us wandered more than a 1/3 mile down the beach where we saw a little less ice, but also a couple of larger chunks dancing in the surf.

I attempted find compositions that juxtaposed nearby smaller ice with the two larger chunks, but because this big ice was actually in the surf, all the relationships changed with each wave—not exactly the way I like to shoot.

After more than an hour of this the sun finally appeared, and I took the opportunity to work on sunstar images in the couple of minutes it took to rise between the lower and upper layer of clouds. Challenged by the constantly shifting ice and always moving surf, I still managed to get a dozen or so images before the sun rose out of view.