Earlier this month I was fortunate to be able to travel to Iceland with an open schedule to shoot whatever caught my eye. As it was the first time I had been there it was somewhat of a scouting mission for future trips, but I had some goals and shots I wanted to bring home all the same. Having only a week to explore I was faced with a multitude of things to see, do and photograph, so I choose to focus on the stunning south coast (and leave other parts of Iceland for later)!

Through the first half of the week I was stifled by the weather. Almost constant rain, 100 km/h winds, and grey cloudy skies from dawn to dusk meant I had very few useful images to show for my work. I did get to experience Þingvellir, the historical gathering site of the Icelandic government, countless impressive waterfalls, and the huge glaciers that lead up into the highlands. It’s easy to see why people are drawn to this land of beauty.

The second half of the week was magical. The skies cleared just in time for a MASSIVE aurora borealis light show, the largest of the current solar cycle. The storm brought KPs as high as 8 (geomagnetic nerd terms for really, really big auroras), and filled the sky in all directions with dancing green, red and purple lights, all visible to the eye as well as the camera sensor. I didn’t sleep much over the next few days, and I had a goofy grin plastered on my face all day long (partially from lack of sleep).

The week capped off with watching a partial solar eclipse from Jökulsárlón Beach, which again miraculously had cloudless skies. I was able to view the 98% total eclipse on March 20th, so tantalizingly close to totality, and experiment with photographing the sun using solar filters. Afterwards I created the composite image of the eclipse seen at the top of the page, which I’m pretty happy with given this was my first attempt at this sort of thing!

All these images are available as limited edition prints, please shoot me an email marquess@mkbeck.com for pricing and availability. The full gallery of Iceland images is available here.