Being general optimists, my wife and I made reservations to go on a cruise with her sisters for October 2021. Since that is a time that I would like for us to do a dedicated photography trip, I checked around for an alternative destination. I found a nice-looking photo workshop in Iceland after the cruise and made additional bookings for that. This turned out to be a doubly good plan, as the cruise ended up getting cancelled anyway.

Landing in Iceland (my wife decided to stay home), I was met by the workshop leader and a snowstorm. We spent the rest of the day mostly driving through the gloomy weather. The snow did stop later that day, but conditions remained pretty overcast. We stayed the next two nights in Grundarfjörður.

This lodging was conveniently close to the Kirkjufell mountain and waterfall, which are iconic photography subjects in Iceland. We went out before sunrise to scout specific compositions and start shooting in the blue hour. After some initial shots, I wandered around the area along the lagoon's edge below the falls. It had been fairly overcast early on, but the clouds began breaking up. As sunrise approached, I noticed that the scene was brightening up. I made my way back to the waterfall to shoot the scene you see here.