Sunrise at Vestrahorn
After several trips to Iceland, one location had remained firmly on my list - black sand, golden grass and an incredible mountain range in the background. Two nights beneath Vestrahorn finally gave me the conditions I’d hoped for.
I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Iceland several times and have explored much of the island, but one place I’d always wanted to photograph was Vestrahorn and the black sand beach at Stokksnes.
When I was asked to plan another trip to Iceland, I knew I had to find a way of including it.
Vestrahorn sits on Iceland’s south-east coast, a considerable drive from Reykjavík, so I planned the journey with several stops along the way and two nights at the Viking Café Guesthouse, conveniently located right beside the beach. Staying there would give us much more opportunity to explore the area and, hopefully, make the most of whatever conditions Iceland decided to give us.
It was February, and on the journey there we experienced just about every type of weather imaginable — snow, rain, strong winds and sunshine.
A promising first night
We arrived with the prospect of a reasonably clear night and the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights. It was a long shot; cloud soon started building and the aurora forecast suggested only fairly minor activity.
Being guests at the Viking Café meant we had access to the track leading down towards the beach, so we kept watching the sky.
Eventually, a faint green streak appeared through the cloud.
We headed down and I managed to capture several frames which I later stitched together into a panorama, with Vestrahorn beneath the aurora, the lights of our accommodation in the foreground and the distant glow of Höfn beyond.
We were off to a good start.
Chasing the sunrise
The following morning we were up well before sunrise and headed back towards the beach. Staying on location made an enormous difference.
There were a handful of walkers and other photographers spread around the area, but thankfully it was far removed from the overcrowded scenes that have become associated with some of Iceland’s most famous locations.
We’d explored the area the previous day and I’d hoped to identify exactly where I wanted to shoot from, but Vestrahorn is a surprisingly challenging place to pre-visualise. There are so many possible foregrounds and compositions that finding the view isn’t as straightforward as I’d expected.
As the sun began to rise and the light started to improve, I got that horrible feeling you sometimes get as a photographer — the light is happening and you’re still looking for the image.
Eventually I settled on a composition just as the light was reaching its best.
I was using my Nikon Z8 with the 24–70mm f/2.8, but even at 24mm it wasn’t wide enough to capture the vista in front of me. Instead, I photographed a series of overlapping frames with the intention of stitching them together afterwards.
It worked better than I could have hoped.
For a few moments the low sunlight caught the golden grasses scattered across the black sand while simultaneously illuminating the face of Vestrahorn behind them. Against the dark sand and heavy sky, the entire landscape seemed to come alive.
It was an amazing morning of photography, and we couldn’t have asked for much better conditions.
Twenty-four hours later
We still had another night at Vestrahorn, but Iceland had one final reminder of just how fortunate we’d been.
Cloud descended that evening and a little snow fell overnight. When we returned the following morning, the landscape in front of us couldn’t have looked much more different.
The mountains were shrouded in cloud, the dunes covered with fresh snow and the warm golden light of the previous morning had completely disappeared.
Two mornings, barely 24 hours apart, and two entirely different versions of the same landscape.
It was a perfect reminder of how quickly conditions can change in Iceland — and just how fortunate we’d been to be standing in the right place when everything came together.
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