This article is part of the Complete Guide to Photography in Iceland
Photographing Iceland is an incredible experience, and few other destinations combine such a wild landscape with the facilities for almost anyone to get out and explore. You can visit remote volcanic landscapes, incredible fjords and coastline, and towering waterfalls, often finding yourself alone in a desolate landscape. However, you don’t need to be a courageous adventurer to plan an independent trip around the country.
You do need to plan, and some research into Iceland’s landscape and weather will help you stay safe and get the most out of the photography opportunities. I’ve spent many months exploring Iceland at all times of the year and had experiences from a complete white-out in a blizzard to watching the northern lights dance over an active volcano.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes almost every time I’ve travelled to Iceland, and this article contains the most relevant advice and tips for photography and travel.
Make realistic choices about where to go
There are so many photography locations in Iceland that it would be impossible to visit even the most popular spots in a single trip. Most of us get drawn into the incredible photographs you can find from Iceland, and imagine what it would be like to travel there and capture a similar portfolio. However, Iceland is enormous, and there will be a limit to how many places you’ll have time to visit.
The best approach is to embrace this limitation and make bold choices about your itinerary. Iceland's most popular tourist spots are not the best photography locations, and you’ll get better images if you focus on the landscape instead of the top ten list (a friend of mine visited Iceland three times before even going to Reykjavik). If your trip is mainly for photography, look up advice for photographers and try to ignore the more general tips about the best places to go.
You might also plan to visit a specific region and avoid the temptation to plan an itinerary around the ring road. Iceland's circular highway roughly tracks an outline of the country, and it can be a good basis for an itinerary which allows you to constantly head somewhere new but still end up back at the start. However, driving the whole ring road can limit your options to revisit locations and explore in-depth, especially on a shorter visit.
Plan for the weather
Iceland has varied weather, and the flat, barren landscape is very exposed to the elements. You’ll need to prepare for anything, and it will be hard to predict if you will experience an incredible sunset or get stuck in the driving rain. However, on a trip at any time of year, it’s almost certain that you’ll lose a day or two to bad weather.
When considering your itinerary, allow for a few days where you may not be able to shoot at all. If you have one particular location that you don’t want to miss, an itinerary that passes by for a single day will make your trip vulnerable to blizzards, high winds, storms, or the relentless rain that makes using the camera a lot less fun.
An itinerary that tracks the ring road and stops in a new place every day almost guarantees you’ll miss some locations to the conditions. Instead, plan 2-3 days in each area so that each of your days has some flexibility. For example, if you are determined to see Vestrahorn, stay in Hofn for 3 nights for the flexibility to explore the nearby locations and still save the best weather for your favourite spot.
Plan for the season
Iceland is very different in the summer and winter, and you’ll need to prepare for the season of your visit. Both have advantages, but they form a very different kind of trip.
In winter, your itinerary should be less ambitious and allow that you may not be able to drive long distances between each location. You’ll need plenty of layers and a very heavy jacket to spend long periods in the landscape, and ice grips for your shoes will make moving around easier in some spots.
Don’t underestimate the cold in the summer, and plan as you would for a winter trip elsewhere in Europe or North America. Layers are even more important in the summer, and you’ll still need a good jacket and solid shoes. You can travel longer distances more reliably in the warmer months and expect the roads to be fully open, but you can still lose days to the weather. I once had to hide indoors in August because the winds were so strong they tore the asphalt from the roads.
Track and follow safety advice
Icelanders are experienced at exploring the outdoors and travelling around a volcanic island in the ocean: when they offer you safety advice, they really mean it. The government and institutions of Iceland also publish and communicate advice very effectively, and it is the only country where the first websites I recommend are all run by the local authorities.
If you are exploring Iceland independently, you are less likely to come into contact with locals who can give you up-to-date information. Try to regularly check the weather and conditions of the roads, and consider how they might affect each day of your trip.
The first challenge is the weather, and on days with particularly heavy snow, wind or rain, it’s best (and sometimes essential) to plan your journeys around the worst conditions. The Icelandic Met Office issues colour-coded alerts for different regions if the weather might impact your travel or safety.
If you plan to hike in the wilderness or visit an erupting volcano, Safe Travel has advice on safe areas and options to submit a travel plan so that someone knows where you have gone.
Finally, the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration runs an incredible website with current information on the state of each major road in the country. In the winter, this website is permanently open on my phone, and there is never a day when I don’t check it.
https://safetravel.is/: Advice on exploring Iceland, especially for wilderness hikes and volcanoes
https://umferdin.is/en: The current status of every major road in Iceland
https://en.vedur.is/: The Iceland Met Office, with useful forecasts and safety alerts
Bring a drone
Whether you are an experienced drone user or considering getting one for the first time, Iceland is one of the best destinations for flying. I often feel uncomfortable flying my drone, especially around other people, but there are many remote spots in Iceland where it’s safe and legal to fly, and you can be sure not to bother other visitors.
Some areas of Iceland, particularly the Highlands, also look best from the air. There are intricate patterns in rivers that you can only see from above, volcanic craters that can’t be fully appreciated from the ground, and plenty of areas where the textures and colours of the landscape only become obvious if you can get some distance above the terrain.
A drone isn’t essential to get great photographs in Iceland, but it will give you more options than in most other locations. You’ll need to research the licence and any permissions you need, which can create a little extra work for your trip planning, but I recommend investing in a drone before you visit Iceland if this is an area of photography you hope to explore.
Practice astrophotography before your trip
If you plan to visit Iceland in the winter, you’ll likely be out with the camera at night, watching the stars and hoping for northern lights. Shooting at night can be an unusual experience, and it’s worth investing some time to practice before you arrive in Iceland.
For a successful night photography shoot, you need to know how to operate your camera in low light. Focusing can be more difficult without a visible part of the landscape, and framing your subjects when you can’t see them through the viewfinder is also a challenge. Even setting up your camera and using a tripod with a head torch can be clunky the first time you try it.
There may only be a moment to capture the aurora in Iceland, and you won’t want to waste it learning night photography for the first time. If you have time before you leave, set up your camera outside at night, focus on a star or other points of light, and try to capture a sharp image of the night sky. Even a single practice session will help you be more prepared for an aurora show, and increase your chance of capturing a successful image.
Make a clear plan for each day
Iceland is (mostly) not inside the Arctic Circle, and it has no periods of midnight sun or polar night. However, the sunrise and sunset times vary hugely between summer and winter, and your experience of the light will be very different depending on the time of year you visit.
When planning your trip, think carefully about how to manage your energy and ensure you can be outside making images when the light is at its best. At some times of year, you can set up and eat breakfast with plenty of time before sunrise. At other times, you might stay up between sunrise and sunset rather than sleep in between. Whenever you visit Iceland, there will be conflicts between when you usually prefer to eat or sleep and when the sun will be low on the horizon.
When working out a daily schedule, we often focus on the timing of the best light, but it's important to also factor in food and sleep. Going out tired and hungry will impact your creativity, making it more difficult to find good locations and develop interesting compositions. Being well-rested and energetic makes us better at any activity; photography is no different, and a daily schedule is about optimising your time in the landscape, not maximising it.
Further photography advice for Iceland
Iceland has many places to visit and an unusual landscape, so researching your trip can make a significant difference to the photographs you capture. There are too many photography locations for a single trip, and you’ll have to make compromises when building your itinerary. The better you understand the options, the more time you can plan in the locations that will be best for your style of photography.
You’ll also need to factor in weather and safety advice, think about what time of day will give you the best light, and consider the logistics of getting around remote parts of the country. Visiting the most spectacular locations in Iceland can take some planning if you want to be there in good light, and it’s a photography destination that rewards a more prepared visitor.
For more about the logistics of a photography trip to Iceland, check out my complete guide to photography in Iceland. I also have an article about the best photography locations, with mapping links and information about how and when to go.
There’s also a Photography Travel Guidebook for Iceland with a thorough explanation of how to plan a visit and more than 200 photography spots with images and precise locations.
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