Journey to the Land of Fire & Ice: Around the Peninsula

My primary goal for Day 7 was to continue driving around the Snaefellsnes Peninsula starting with the sunrise over Kirkjufell mountain with Kirkjufellfoss waterfall in the foreground (the classic photo). According to my one app, this would occur around 3:38 am, give or take a few minutes, and the weather forecast early the previous day indicated there would be minimal to no cloud cover at that time. Later on though, it looked liked clouds would be moving in. But I figured it was still worth a shot. Even with some clouds it could be a great composition. So, I set my alarm for 2 am, and I was on location shortly after 3. I was the first one there (surprise), which was glorious. There were some low level clouds hanging over the mountain still, but I took some shots anyway. Then the weather began to worsen. More clouds came in, the wind picked up, and it started to drizzle. Ahhh, Iceland weather! I waited a little hoping it would improve, but it didn't happen. It just kept getting worse. So I headed back to the van to make breakfast (an omelet, by the way) and wait it out. The weather eventually improved but by then other peeps, mostly other photographers began to arrive. Everyone wanted that same shot, including me! I headed back out and took a bunch of photographs, sometimes in the same footsteps as the other photographers (and vice versa) -- pretty amusing. The sun never did break through the clouds as projected. It may have done so later in the day, but it was time for me to move on around the peninsula.

As I got further west, the sun finally did come out, and it became an absolutely beautiful day. However, at several of the locations, I would have actually preferred overcast/stormy skies or at least more clouds. Landscape photography is funny that way. Sometimes you want sun, sometimes you want fluffy clouds, and sometimes you want something else, but not always is this what you get. It's really the luck of the draw and being in the right place at the right moment. And if this doesn't happen, you learn to deal with it and try to make something out of what you have. So that's what I tried to do.

After hitting all the spots I wanted to visit in the peninsula, I set my sights for Reykjavik and further south to the Reykjanes Peninsula for my last full day.