Rising from the dunes
Vestrahorn mountain.
Vestrahorn mountain.
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Mar, 2019Views
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Awards
Zenith Award
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Spring 21 Award
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Contest Finalist in Creative Landscapes Photo Contest vol4
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in Iceland, at the beautiful Vestrahorn mountain. This was my third photography adventure, after Scotland and Norway.Time
I had previously come to this location the day before and again in the morning for sunrise, where I was positioned along the shoreline and the mountain was lit up, but when I returned for sunset, the way the light picked out the sand dunes gave me inspiration for an entirely new composition. This was taken on September 13th 2018 at 19:43. This ended up being one of my favourite photos from my trip.Lighting
The lighting made this image, really bringing out the features of the landscape. This photo reminds me of the importance of giving time to your photography, as I could of easily left this spot in the morning to try somewhere new, but I decided to stick around and see what the light would do in the evening, and I'm glad I did.Equipment
This was shot with the Sony A7r ii, with a Canon 16-35mm L series f4, on a MEFOTO tripod on the tallest sand dune I could find!Inspiration
The inspiration for this photo was firstly the location itself, Iceland has a myriad of wonderfully unique landscapes, and the Vestrahorn mountain was somewhere I had seen a picture of and new it was a place I wanted to photograph. As I'm sure is the same for most photographers you have an idea of what you are looking for but try to be open and take inspiration from the elements on the day, the weather and particularly the light. I originally wanted to create a composition with the shoreline running towards the mountain and splitting the image, but then I saw the sunset catching the sand dunes which felt to me like a stronger feature.Editing
The post-processing was quite standard, I try to get fairly close to want I remember, for a natural look. I had shot a number of different exposures with the thought to combine to keep all the detail in the sky but this was my first time shooting with the Sony A7r ii, having upgraded from my beloved Canon 60D, and the dynamic range allowed me to pull back all the highlight detail from the sky no problem. I did also take it into Photoshop to remove a few tourists in the background.In my camera bag
In my kit bag you would find (all entirely second hand) a Sony A7r ii body with Metabones IV adapter, Canon 16-35mm L f4, Canon 70-200 L f4 (I love using this telephoto for getting portraits of landscapes), a couple of old primes - Nikon 100mm f2.8 (I should really sell this but there's something I quite like about it!) & 50mm f1.8, a set of ND filters and polariser, a DJI Mavic 2 pro (for a different perspective), and a MEFOTO Tripod.Feedback
It's hard to go wrong in Iceland, with such epic landscapes! I guess my advice would be absorb what you see, find what draws you in within a given landscape and think about what detail or feature you want to focus your composition on. Then just take your time, patience is key, and giving yourself the time to wait for the right moment or try out different times of day when the light will be at its best.
