Vestrahorn
On my way around the ring road of Iceland, I once again passed by Vestrahorn, an amazing mountain at the coast of Iceland
Last time I visited, the ...
Read more
On my way around the ring road of Iceland, I once again passed by Vestrahorn, an amazing mountain at the coast of Iceland
Last time I visited, the weather was terrible, but this time.. oh boy.. I was blessed with clear skies, stars in the thousands, and northern lights behind the mountain..
It was just an amazing experience
Read less
Last time I visited, the weather was terrible, but this time.. oh boy.. I was blessed with clear skies, stars in the thousands, and northern lights behind the mountain..
It was just an amazing experience
Read less
Dec, 2017Views
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Contest Finalist in What A Night Photo Contest
Contest Finalist in The Cold Winter Photo Contest
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Contest Finalist in Nature And The Night Photo Contest
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johnboywalton196
January 20, 2018
Very commercial image! Brilliant in composition and style. Absolutely jaw dropping image, extremely well captured!
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Behind The Lens
Location
So this is an image from one of the most known locations in Iceland, a mountain range called Vestrahorn. The combination of the mountain and the black sand are really what many photographers want to see and shoot when they visit Iceland, so that makes Vestrahorn a perfect, but most of the time, a crowded location.Time
The images is taken right around midnight during winter, it wasn't really planned, if I had planned to shoot here, I might have gotten there earlier to be able to scout the location a bit more than what was possible at this time of nightLighting
The image is really to images, one for the mountain and the sky and one for the foreground, so I could lower my ISO a but for the foreground. The northern light seen behind the mountain was a "mistake" because it wasn't really visible when I was there, I just saw this glow on my screen when I captured the image, and kinda figured it was clouds and maybe a far away town lighting the clouds from below. But the viewing a map later on, I saw there was no lightpollution nearby, and when in the car, nice and warm, I could see the different color tones, so I became aware of this being my first image of the northern lights :)Equipment
The images is shot with a canon 5D mark 4, a 16-35mm lens, and my trusty Gitzo traveller tripod.Inspiration
I visited this location during summer the year before, and although I love the area and the majestic mountain in general, I was kinda fed up seeing images from this location due to its massive popularity among photographers. So as mentioned before, it wasn't planned, we just drove past, coming from the northern part of Iceland, and we were chasing the northern lights at a few other location, but as we drove past, I just wanted my buddy to see the area at night and see the stars on an image, since it was our first night with a clear sky. If I had gotten an image, that was planned, and with the normal dancing aurora above the mountain, then I'm not sure I would have saved or shared the image, because of the similarity to so many other images. But as soon as I saw the light bing like this, with the shutter speed chosen, I new I had something special.Editing
Nothing much, blended the foreground in, to get sharp sand dunes, and a bit of color gradingIn my camera bag
The gear mentioned before are always in my bag, then a 70-200 and my filtersFeedback
My advice is not to capture something similar, see a location as an interesting opportunity to explore, but don't try to copy or mimic another photo from the same location. Be sure to stand out in your photography, and sometimes it means to skip the famous locations. The most important thing to remember when shooting landscapes, is to expect to fail, and to go out with no intention of capturing an image, and to be able to just explore and enjoy. When you are able to do that, you'll find the unique compositions most of us are looking for.
