Ice beach Jökulsarlon

Ice beach photography on a Winter photo workshop

Velvet Beach

This long exposure photograph manages to collect the best of the reflected colour in the wet sand over a couple of minutes. Using the Magic Cloth to prevent the sky from over-exposing and to expose only the wettest sand over the 2 minute picture.

The incredible colours are sometimes enhanced by volcanic sand or dust in the air after windy conditions.

Location

The beach at Jökulsarlon is close to our hotel and is visited 3 or 4 mornings on the workshop.

Blue Wing

This was a lone piece of ice on the ice beach on a December morning. The sky was fantastic for about an hour and gave the group a bunch of great photos. Even though we ran to this piece of ice, we had plenty of time to try many compositions.

The blue of the glacier ice is real and contrasts beautifully against the black volcanic sand.

The special thing about taking photos at Jökulsarlon and Ice Beach is that the glacier ice is constantly changing according to the light, weather, wind, tides, temperature, other chunks of ice and tourist’s feet. For a photographer, this location presents new challenges with every visit. There are very few times that I have returned with nothing.

Below are tours that include this area of Iceland.