Winter in Iceland

Ice­land itself is big­ger than the whole of Scot­land, and the south coast of Ice­land is only one small part with an unlim­it­ed array of pho­tog­ra­phy to explore. On this work­shop, we have decid­ed not to just sim­ply take you to the pop­u­lar loca­tions such as Sko­gafoss, Sel­ja­lands­foss and Jokul­sar­lon, but explore and pho­to­graph the many oth­er places that peo­ple pass en-route to these clas­sic loca­tions. Ice­land is mas­sive­ly trans­formed dur­ing its win­ter with the poten­tial for snow and ice and dra­mat­ic skies with beau­ti­ful low light all day long. It goes with­out say­ing that the Auro­ra Bore­alis is nev­er far away at this time of year!

Most of this pho­tog­ra­phy work­shop will be based between Vik and Hofn on the edge of the mighty Atlantic. Of course, you will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore the black vol­canic beach­es and clifftops of Dyrho­laey and Reyn­is­f­jara, but we will explore the amaz­ing lava flows and huge inter­tidal area of Dyrho­l­ar which are often ignored. Anoth­er often com­plete­ly missed area are the vast glacial out­flow riverbeds at Myrdalssan­dur, over which run a series of road bridges head­ing east.

In 2025 we have redesigned our route to take in more of the amaz­ing loca­tions south Ice­land has to offer, as well as skirt­ing the south coast from Reyk­javik to Ves­tra­horn, we will be mak­ing time to head north and vis­it sev­er­al of the jew­els in the crown of this land­scape, Gull­foss, Fax­afoss and Geysir. Gul­foss is vast water­fall and every sec­ond 140 cubic meters of glacial water cas­cade into its 100ft ravine. The sound alone is incred­i­ble. Close by, is Fax­afoss a cas­cade which spans 200 meters wide, and last­ly, the fas­ci­nat­ing geot­her­mal area of Geysir which sits direct­ly on the slopes of the vast boil­ing caul­dron of Lau­gar­f­jall lava dome. The high­light of vis­it­ing this area is the geyser Stokkur which erupts every ten min­utes and fires crys­tal clear hot-spring water up to 100 ft into the air!

Often over­looked are the huge open expans­es of Vol­canic ash lands which stretch from the inland cliffs (that were once the sea-edge) to the now open Atlantic. Cross­ing these areas are won­der­ful graph­ic lines of pylons, not to men­tion the big-sky that changes con­stant­ly with the weath­er com­ing in from the coast.

The Eld­hau­rn lava field is real­ly some­thing to behold in Ice­land. Now cov­ered in a thick and beau­ti­ful green lay­er of moss­es, this land­scape was cre­at­ed by one of the most vio­lent erup­tions that Ice­land has ever wit­nessed between 1783 and 1784. The Laki vol­cano dis­charged 15 cubic kilo­me­tres of lava cov­er­ing an area of 600 square kilo­me­tres and is the world’s third largest lava flow since the Ice Age. No vis­it to the south coast of Ice­land in the win­ter would be com­plete with­out walk­ing into the mighty Fjadrar­glju­fur Canyon. The canyon has ver­ti­cal walls and is 100 meters deep and cuts, snake-like through the moun­tain side. Cre­at­ed nine thou­sand years ago by glacial melt­wa­ter from a lake, it is unique to this part of Iceland.

The area sur­round­ing Hofn changes again and is a photographer’s par­adise. Cross­ing the huge open riv­er deltas of Skei­dararsan­dur you can see the mighty Hof­sjokull and Vat­na­jokull glac­i­ers above. Of course, we will plan a vis­it to get up close and per­son­al with Svinafell­sjokull. We dri­ve right up to the car park that over­looks the snout of the glac­i­er and take a short walk up the path to its’ side where the blue ice and intri­cate moraines can be seen in all their glo­ry, thou­sands of years old. We will of course vis­it the world famous Jokul­sar­lon so you can expe­ri­ence first-hand the calv­ing of ice­bergs and watch them pass through the lagoon chan­nel mak­ing their jour­ney into the Atlantic. We will take time to pho­to­graph the beached ice­bergs on the black sands of Jokul­sar­lon beach.

Fur­ther east we move to qui­eter places of Lons­fjor­dur, a huge black peb­ble bank that pro­vides shel­ter to the tiny set­tle­ment of Svin­ho­l­ar, and we ven­ture into the moon-like beach and cliffs of Vestrahorn.
Ice­land is not ​‘done’ at all and this work­shop will show this. Win­ter here is some­thing every pho­tog­ra­ph­er should expe­ri­ence. The unique­ness of south Ice­land is wait­ing to be dis­cov­ered and we are ready to show you!

Dur­ing this pho­tog­ra­phy work­shop it is our aim to work with you to help you cap­ture the very essence of this amaz­ing land­scape in the grip of the win­ter. We will of course enjoy vis­it­ing some of the clas­sic loca­tions in the south coast of Ice­land, but there are so many oth­er aspects of this land­scape that can be explored with your cam­era. Ice­land is under­stand­ably pop­u­lar with land­scape pho­tog­ra­phers, but we will be on hand to help you find your own unique perspective.