Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
Get Centered
Posted on February 27, 2024
Winter Twilight, Vestrahorn, Iceland
Sony a7R V
Sony 12-24 GM
1/8 second
F/11
ISO 200
This day started with one of the most disturbing experiences of my photo workshop life, so finishing with a sunset like this was comforting relief for the entire group.
But before I get to the sunset, let me wind the clock all the way back to our short drive to Diamond Beach for this morning’s sunrise. In February Iceland’s sunrise arrives at around 10 a.m., but with the high latitude also comes extremely long twilight hours, so we were on the road for the 10-minute drive to the beach at 8:30, stomachs full of breakfast. The sky was still quite dark, but hints of a beautiful sunrise were already creeping up along the eastern horizon as we drove. In a workshop filled with special, Diamond Beach is extra special, so despite the darkness outside, everyone was pretty energized as we bounced along the highway.
Gazing through the windshield from my seat near the front of our (small—26 passengers) bus, I caught sight of a dark shadow approaching from the left. Simultaneously, someone in the back yelled, “Look out!”, and our driver Vincenzo braked hard. The shadow was just ambling, showing no sign of awareness of its immediate peril, neither slowing or speeding as it moved About the time my brain identified the shadow as a reindeer, it was directly in front of us and smack! From the first instant of the reindeer’s appearance to our bus’s direct hit, I’d guess less than a second elapsed.
We were traveling around 45 miles per hour, a pretty reasonable and safe speed in Iceland’s icy darkness. We’ve all been in accidents (right?)—almost without exception the situation changes from perfectly normal to dire before your brain has time to register what’s happening. Given that, I have to say that Vincenzo did an amazing job: Instead of following the normal human reflex to swerve (as I’m afraid I might have done), he simply braked quickly and continued forward into the reindeer. Textbook. While not the best result for the reindeer, Vincenzo’s response on that frozen highway almost certainly spared us a rollover and many injuries, perhaps worse.
Bus reindeer damage. I took this picture quite a while after the accident, shortly before we tried to limp home.
We immediately pulled over, all pretty shaken, but no one more-so than Vincenzo. After a minute or two to recenter, the four group leaders (Iceland guide Albert Dros, driver and photographer Vincenzo Mazza, Don Smith, and me), exited to assess the damage. There was no doubt that the reindeer was down for the count on impact, a small comfort to know that it didn’t suffer. But when I saw our headlights still shining bright before exiting, I’d held out slight hope that damage to the bus would be cosmetic and not impact our trip. No such luck.
In addition to the obvious damage to the grill (which doesn’t really show up well in the picture), we were losing coolant. Only a few minutes from Diamond Beach, we briefly toyed with the thought of continuing on to sunrise and letting Vincenzo deal with the damage while we photographed, but ended up making the incredibly wise decision to cut our losses and turn around to attempt the 3 mile drive back to our hotel where we could regroup.
Even poking along at around 5 MPH, and despite the frigid outside temperature, the bus’s thermostat needle immediately started creeping northward, toward the red. I know Vincenzo was watching its climb as closely as he watched the road, and after about 10 minutes he pulled us to a stop to let the engine cool. After about a 15-minute respite, we (fingers crossed) fired up the engine and limped the rest of the way back—3 miles in 45 minutes.
Back at the hotel, immediate problem solved, we still needed to figure out how we were going to complete the second half of our workshop minus our trusty chariot. But within a couple of hours, Don and I got word that our tour company had pulled some strings and our replacement “bus” would be delivered by 1 p.m. We were back in business.
The arrival of this replacement van might be a good time to remind you that beggars can’t be choosers. Normally Don and I cap the Iceland workshop at 12 participants, but since this group would be led by 4 qualified photographers, and we knew our bus would be more than big enough for everyone, we went to 14 participants. With the 4 leaders, that meant 18 people in our 26-passenger bus—no problem, especially since the bus had ample storage. Sadly, that calculus didn’t account for an encounter with a reindeer, and the reality that our replacement vehicle would turn out to be more of a large van, with seats only for 21, and very limited storage space—more designed for day excursions than multi-day trips.
Having missed just the morning’s sunrise shoot, that afternoon we motored off to Vestrahorn in our new wheels, certainly cozy, but (more or less) comfortable. Since we were already using virtually every inch of available space for our bodies and camera bags, we all scratched our heads at how, when we checked out in a couple of days, we were going to squeeze all of our luggage in to our new ride. When questioned, Albert simply answered that we’d do it because we had no choice, and I chose not to stress about it. (Much.) And there was still photography to be done!
Vestrahorn is rivaled only by Kirkjufell on the list of recognizable Iceland peaks. Towering about 1500 feet above the North Atlantic, Vestrahorn’s intrusive origins distinguish it from many of its mostly extrusive Icelandic neighbors. The mountain’s rock formed about 10 million years ago, when subterranean volcanism injected iron- and magnesium-rich magma from Earth’s mantle into the crust above. Protected by this crust from exposure to the much cooler atmosphere on the surface, this magma cooled slowly to form Vestrahorn’s hard, crystal-infused core. Over time this hardened core was pushed upward by the region’s relentless geological forces. With this increasing elevation, the much softer crust entombing the mountain gradually eroded away, leaving only the peak we see today.
Vestrahorn Reflection, Stokksnes Beach, Iceland (2021)
On any day, Vestrahorn is a photographer’s delight. Though visually quite different, I liken the photography experience here to the Alabama Hills beneath California’s Sierra Crest, where an infinite variety of foreground composition possibilities stretch beneath the dramatic mountain peaks. At Vestrahorn, the foreground variety comes courtesy of black sand dunes, icy ponds, faceted ice patterns, and the mirror reflections left behind each time the surf retreats from gently sloping Stokksnes Beach.
I like to get around to everyone in the group before starting my own photography, but more than any other location in Iceland, here people seem to scatter like shotgun pellets. After about a half hour of wandering I finally gave up on finding everyone and started looking for my own foreground to put with the mountain. A sucker for reflections, I normally beeline to the beach, but with the tide out I decided this might be a good day to try the dunes. I’m so glad I did.
I poked around the dunes, searching for a grouping I could compose into something coherent and complementary, and that hadn’t been soiled by footprints. After about 20 minutes I landed at the spot you see in my image at the top of the post and didn’t move more than 20 feet for the rest of the evening.
As you can see from the image above, Vestrahorn this evening was a particular treat. One of the many reasons I like Iceland so much in winter is the snow decorating the peaks. And though I’ve seen Vestrahorn with much more snow, I found the peak’s snowy accents this evening especially appealing (compared to the barren slopes that dominate in Iceland’s warmer months). But the evening’s real show came courtesy of the interplay of clouds and light above the peak as the sun dropped.
Because the sun ascends and descends the sky at such a shallow angle at this high latitude, sunrise and sunset seem to unfold in slow motion. When the reds fired up this evening, much of the color above the mountain was obscured by clouds. But because the really nice color hung-in for at least 30 minutes, the clouds had more than enough time to thin and spread enough to allow the late light through, eventually blanketing much of the sky with persistent pink. By the time it reached this stage, I’d become so familiar with all the compositional opportunities in my little corner of the island that I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to handle it.
I fell in love with the foreground dunes early on, and after it became pretty clear that the color would stretch far overhead, switched to my 12-24 lens to include as much of the entire scene as possible: dunes, mountain, sky. But how to handle a sky that rivals a classically beautiful landscape? There are very few absolutes in photography, but one of the most damaging “absolutes” is the admonition to never center the horizon, or your subject on the frame’s horizontal or vertical axes. This usually well-intended edict might have value to the raw novice who automatically centers every horizon and subject, but can actually be damaging to insecure neophytes not confident enough to trust their own creative vision. If centering feels right, go for it!
My own “rule” is to decide where most of the scene’s visual interest resides, foreground or background, and allocate a proportional percentage when I set my horizon. Sky better than the foreground? The sky gets most of my frame. Foreground better than the sky? The foreground gets most of my frame. Both sky and foreground too beautiful to decide? I have no problem splitting my scene right down the middle.
Reflections are probably the most frequent example of scenes that can be split down the middle, but this choice isn’t limited to reflections. And as far as centering a subject is concerned, I don’t hesitate when I want it to dominate my scene, or when there’s nothing else in the frame to balance a dominant subject. If you’re not sure, or simply don’t trust your own instincts, just do it both ways and decide later.
Epilogue
Striking an animal leaves a persistent knot in the pit of your stomach. We all felt it, but no one more than Vincenzo, who told us later that he’s never struck anything with a vehicle—person, animal, or other vehicle. He was pretty shaken, but I think having a job to do, plus the interaction with, and support of, the rest of the group distracted him enough to make it through the trip. For the rest of us, knowing we’re all dealing with this shared trauma helped a lot, as of course did being the distraction of wonderful photography.
Another unexpected bonding opportunity came from the impossible solution Albert and Vincenzo devised to get us back to Reykjavik with all of our stuff. Without going into great detail (lest we get them into trouble for violating some kind of Iceland vehicular safety code), no person or gear was left behind or strapped to the outside of the vehicle, and we each had our own seat (and seatbelt). Hardly a square-inch of space, horizontal or vertical, went unused, and even after getting the group choreography polished, entering exiting the van still took at least five minutes. But we made it, and I think everyone would agree that the tight quarters became a catalyst for much fun and laughter that proved just the necessary medicine.
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Sublimely Centered Subjects
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Worth the Sacrifice
Posted on March 13, 2022
Aurora Reflection, Vestrahorn, Iceland
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 GM
15 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 3200
Photography should, first and foremost, make you happy. But every once in a while, for some reason (I have to be really bored) I’ll surf over to an online photography forum or Facebook photography group, only to be instantly reminded why it’s been so long since I visited. The litany of online insults, one-upmanship, and destructive criticism makes me wonder whether there are any happy photographers out there.
Of course I know there are, because I meet them all the time: in my workshops, on location, or simply sharing their images online. I don’t know whether the same photographers who seem so happy when they’re taking pictures do a Jekyll to Hyde transformation as soon as their butts hit the computer chair, or whether there are two types of photographers: those who actually take pictures, and those who simply prefer their computer to Mother Nature (no wonder they’re so unhappy).
Of course getting out to take pictures does require more effort than sitting at a computer. And nature photography usually requires some level of sacrifice because the best time for photography is usually the worst time to be outside: sunrise, when we’d rather be in bed; sunset, when we’d rather be at dinner; crazy weather, when we’d rather be warm; and after dark, when we’d rather be in front of the TV. But I’ve decided that there’s something about witnessing Nature’s majesty that transcends any transient discomfort and inconvenience. And doing it with people who appreciate it as much as you do makes it even better.
Don Smith and I got another reminder in last month’s Iceland photo workshop. On this trip we dealt with all the wind, snow, and frigid temperatures you’d expect in Iceland in February. And then there were the long days and bumpy miles—not to mention a fair share of unexpected hardship. For example, less than 36 hours after clicking this image, several members of our group were nearly swept into the North Atlantic by a rogue wave. Then there were the hotel room snow drifts (note to self: Don’t sleep with the window open in Iceland in February), the lost and found camera bag, the stolen airport shuttle….
But despite all this difficultly, this trip was an absolute blast. This night is a great example. It must have been freezing, but I have no memory of that now. But I do remember standing on the beach beneath Vestrahorn with the rest of the group that night, the waves washing over (and sometimes into) our boots, waiting for the northern lights. Approaching from behind was a storm that, according to the forecast, threatened to close the roads. This scene is beautiful in any conditions, and to be able to photo Vestrahorn under the stars, with even a little bit of aurora, was truly special. Doing it with a group of like-minded, fun loving friends is something I’ll never forget.
What you see here is about as good as the aurora got—nice, but nothing spectacular. Nevertheless, we were having such a great time, we stayed out in the cold dark until the clouds swallowed the stars. Back at the bus, with a storm threatening and an hour’s drive back to the hotel, we were anxious to get on the road. So imagine our chagrin when Óli (or Icelandic guide) turned the key and got nothing but a click. If you’ve every photographed Vestrahorn from here, you know this isn’t one of those places where you can just walk out onto the road and flag down a car. Uh-oh. It would have been easy, understandable even, for people to be upset—or frightened, or angry. Instead, while Óli worked his phone trying find help (the cellular coverage in Iceland is fantastic, FYI), we just continued enjoying each other’s company.
As it turned out, we only had to wait an hour or so for a friend of Óli’s to come out and give us a jumpstart (one more reason why it pays to have a local guide). He also arranged for another friend to drive our direction with van large enough for the entire group, in case the battery charge didn’t hold. Rather than wait for the backup vehicle to arrive, we just started driving in toward the hotel—the other vehicle met us halfway and followed us from there, but we made it without need for more help.
The next morning the battery was dead again, and we were stuck at the hotel all morning while the bus was being repaired (turned out to be an alternator problem). As luck would have it, the storm was so bad that we’d have had to stay in anyway. That afternoon we were picked up for our visit to the ice cave, and the bus was good as new when we returned. So all’s well that ends well.
Worth the Sacrifice
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Blue Hour Photography
Posted on January 31, 2021
Blue Hour, Diamond Beach, Iceland
Sony a7RIV
Sony 100-400 GM
15 seconds
F/20
ISO 50
If you’re fortunate enough to be outside after the sunset color has subsided, but before the world is enveloped in total darkness, you may find yourself basking in the rarified hues of the “blue hour*.” It’s called the blue hour because, wait for it…, the landscape is indeed bathed in blue. (And also because it just rolls off the tongue better than “the blue 20-minutes,” which would actually be more accurate.)
The greatest joy I get from photography is the connection it gives me to the natural world. Whether it’s lightning, some celestial event or geological feature, a technical aspect of photography, the qualities of light, or whatever, whenever possible I try to share something of the science behind my blog image subject or its capture. The goal of this sharing isn’t entirely altruistic—it’s also a great excuse to dig deep into things that absolutely fascinate me. And as it turns out, the science behind the blue hour is especially fascinating.
The blue hour actually lasts less than one hour, with its duration decreasing with latitude because the sun ascends and descends at a steeper angle (faster) as the latitude (distance from the equator) decreases. This means that in Hawaii, if I’m on location 30-minutes before sunrise, I can probably catch the entire show, whereas in Iceland, even if I’m there an hour before sunrise (brrrr), I still might miss something. In the mid-latitudes, 20-minutes is a reasonable rule-of-thumb blue hour duration to rely on.
The cool thing about blue hour color is that, unlike daylight blue sky and sunrise/sunset color, it’s not a function of scattered sunlight. (Read my Sunset Color Photo Tips article for more on this.) Instead, until the sun drops about 8 degrees below the horizon, its blue wavelengths are absorbed by ozone in the upper atmosphere. Though this absorption (Chappuis absorption, if you must know) happens when the sun is above the horizon too, its effects are completely overpowered by direct sunlight. But as direct and scattered sunlight fades with the sinking sun, about the time the sun is about 4 degrees below the horizon, the blue ozone in the sky enjoys its 20-minutes of fame. (In other words, the blue hour reigns when the sun is between 4 and 8 degrees below the horizon.) Because the cones in our eyes require a certain amount of light to register color, this twilight blue is fairly subtle, but still noticeable, to human vision. A camera, on the other hand, with its ability to increase its light sensitivity (ISO) and accumulate light over time (shutter speed), has no problem capturing the dominant blue cast.
Nature photographers love the blue hour, both for the otherworldly hues that aren’t possible any other time of day, and for the exquisitely soft, shadowless light that’s a joy to photograph. The key for getting the most out of blue hour photography is understanding that the camera sees the world differently than you. Some of the best blue hour photography happens after the color is nearly gone from our eyes, tricking us into to packing up and going home too soon. But as I said earlier, the camera can see color too faint for our eyes to register. The color your camera might pick up can range from a purplish mix of the longest waves of sunlight and the beginning of the blue hour light, to the absolute deep-blue that soon fades to night.
The blue hour is also absolutely the best time to photograph the moon, which is why you see so many moon images in the Blue Hour gallery below. While fitting the dynamic range of a daylight-bright moon above virtually dark landscape is tricky, it’s definitely worth trying because the darker the sky, the greater the contrast between the daylight-bright moon and surrounding sky. (Check out my articles on moon photography in the Photo Tips menu above.)
One of my favorite blue hour subjects is the ocean, because the low light means long exposures that turn the surf into a gauzy haze. In Iceland for a workshop last January, I was photographing the surf washing up onto Diamond Beach in the fading twilight. As the blue hour descended, I was drawn the way the distant snow-covered peaks (that’s Vestrahorn on the right) seemed to glow in the bluish twilight. Looking for something to put in the foreground, my eyes landed on a pair of (relatively) large icebergs just offshore and I positioned myself to align them with mountains.
Though I’d spent most of the evening shooting with my widest lenses, for this shot I switched to my Sony 100-400 GM to compress the distance between the mountains and nearby ice. Before dialing in my exposure settings, I studied the icebergs to make sure they were stationary enough to not blur in a long exposure, and decided it would be work if I could expose between waves. It took a few tries, but I finally managed this 15-second exposure without motion blur in the ice.
* The blue hour of course happens in reverse before sunrise (from dark to light); for simplicity sake, I’ll just describe the evening half of the phenomenon.
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Blue Hour
You Can Only Get So Wet
Posted on January 24, 2021
Vestrahorn Reflection, Stokksnes Black Sand Beach, Iceland
Sony a7RIV
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
5 seconds
F/11
ISO 100
Vestrahorn, on Iceland’s southeast coast, is one impressive chunk of rock. Turns out it only reaches 1500 feet above sea level, but the way it juts so abruptly from the volcanic sand of Stokksnes Peninsula, Vestrahorn creates an imposing presence that rivals El Capitan in Yosemite.
This Vestrahorn shoot came toward the end of the 10-day Iceland workshop Don Smith and I led in January of 2020. Arriving late afternoon (which comes pretty early in Iceland in January), the group instantly scattered across the vast, flat plain offered with a variety of foreground options that included black-sand dunes, iced-over puddles, and a vast black sand beach. I made my way down to the beach and, being a sucker for reflections, was quickly drawn to glassy sand behind each retreating wave.
The beach here is so flat that the surf isn’t dangerous (at least it wasn’t on this day), but this was January in Iceland, so I didn’t really want to get wet. On the other hand, getting the reflection I wanted required being well into the wet part of the sand behind a retreating wave, and each reflection only lasted a few seconds before the water soaked into the sand. Emboldened by waterproof boots that reached about a foot up my calf, I wandered out to where it appeared the waves only reached a depth of 2 or 3 inches, not quite far enough to ensure a full reflection with each receding wave, but not too bad.
I really had a blast working this scene, playing with different compositions as the clouds and light above the mountain changed, and varying my timing to capture each wave in different stages of motion, from the frothy white churn at the wave’s front, followed by the floating foam shapes trailing it, and finally the reflective sheen punctuating each retreat. I also tried a variety of shutter speeds, freezing or applying a variety of blur effects to the moving water. When I get into this zone, I lose all sense of time a surroundings…
So imagine my surprise to feel freezing water soaking my feet. I looked down to see that my legs from the knees down had disappeared, and the beach I’d been standing on now more closely resembled a lake. With the tide clearly coming in (hmmm, perhaps that’s why the reflections seemed to be getting better…), my first inclination was to retreat. But the photography was definitely better in the deeper water, safety wasn’t a concern, and I suddenly remembered my running mantra: You can only get so wet, and once you get that wet, you’re not going to get any wetter. If this mindset could get me through several extremely miserable marathons, it could certainly get me through this. I hadn’t planned to soak my feet in the chilly surf, but now that the damage was done, I couldn’t really make it any worse. So I ended up staying out there, joyfully surrounded by reflections, for another 30 minutes.
One of the things I’ve learned over many years of photographing in extreme conditions is the value of backups. Not just backup photo gear, though I do think it’s foolish to take any photo trip with just one body (I’d already had to spend two days on this trip using my backup body, waiting for my primary body to dry after a unplanned dip in the surf), but also backup clothes.
So loading into the van (not sure what to call our vehicle: it was either a huge van or a little bus) at the beginning of each day, I always made sure to leave out a change of shoes and socks. Though my marinating feet were okay while I was shooting, as soon as I finished and started heading back to the van/bus (ban? vus?), they suddenly became wet, frozen stumps. I never imagined something as simple as a dry pair of socks could bring so much joy.
Read more about reflections
Surf’s Up
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Blue Hour
Posted on May 20, 2020
Blue Hour, Vestrahorn, Iceland
Sony a7RIV
Sony 12-24 G
8 seconds
F/16
ISO 50
“Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
I haven’t fished in years (decades), but of course Norman Maclean’s words really aren’t about fishing anyway. Nevertheless, I’m reminded of this quote every time I find myself frozen by minutia, mired in the moment by small distractions that matter very little, or looking for excuses not to take pictures.
There are a lot of reasons not to take a picture—tell me if any of these sound familiar: “The light was better yesterday”; “The light will be better tomorrow”; “It’s too cold”; “It’s too hot”; “It’s too wet”; “I’m hungry”; “there’s dust on my sensor”; “This lens is soft,” and on, and on….
This Vestrahorn shoot came toward the end of the 10-day Iceland workshop Don Smith and I led in January of this year (was that really only 4 months ago?!). As the sun disappeared on this chilly winter evening, there were a lot of reasons not to stay out photographing: it was cold, I was wet, the clouds, it was getting dark, and there was a 90-minute drive separating us from dinner. It had been a nice shoot, but I was a little disappointed that the sky that had looked quite promising all afternoon, never really delivered the color I’d been waiting for. But before heading back to the van, I wandered up the beach a bit and found this rocky section that was different from the waves, and the reflections left in their wake, I’d been concentrating on all afternoon. As I reconsidered whether to call it a day, I came upon a lone shell embedded in the sand. With the light fading fast, I quickly dropped my tripod as low as it would go and set up with my Sony 12-24 G lens on my Sony a7RIV, and went to work.
Before I knew it, the “blue hour,” that magnificent transition from day to night (and back) that always looks better on an image than it does to the eye, had taken over. If you’ve ever stayed out to photograph after your eyes tell you it’s time to go in (or started shooting a little early while waiting for sunrise), you know what I’m talking about. What we humans perceive as darkness is really just our eyes’ relatively limited ability to gather light at any given instant. But a camera’s sensor (or a rectangle of unexposed film) can patiently accumulate all the light striking it for whatever duration we prescribe, thereby stretching its “instant” of perception indefinitely. Advantage camera.
On a clear night, you can actually watch the Earth’s shadow descend and engulf the landscape in deepening blue light. And unlike daylight (and moonlight) photography, when a discrete light source casts high-contrast shadows that test a camera’s dynamic range, and starlight photography, when the light is so faint that extremely long exposures are required to register any foreground detail at all, in the pre-sunrise/post-sunset gloaming, a camera can still “see” these diminishing vestiges of daylight. Given enough exposure, the image’s world is rendered blue, and because the entire sky is the light source, this blue hour light is spread so evenly that most shadows disappear.
When I can, I’ll stay out at least long enough for the first stars to pop out. On this evening, because I didn’t want the rest of the group to have to wait for me, I wrapped up before the stars appeared, but still stay out long enough to capture this 8-second exposure—my very last image of the evening. The perfection I’d been watching and waiting for never made it to my eyes, but fortunately my camera revealed that it was there all along.
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Blue Hour
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 