Fresh Water, Forests + Mountains
In the Shadow of Kings
On my second trip to Iceland, I was out photographing a massively popular waterfall when the number of tourists began to simply overwhelm me. I decided to go hike around the area a bit.
A few hundred feet away there was a crack in the mountain. I peaked in and saw this giant canyon lined with green walls. At the end of the canyon was a massive waterfall. It must have been about 300' high.
The problem was walking to it was like walking into a rainstorm. The water was falling so heavily that it was shooting out like a sideways cloud through the canyon.
I walked in as close as I could and found this rock at the lower right of the composition. It was probably about 4' high or so and I used it to help block some of the spray.
Keeping the camera's lens cap on, I setup my camera and tripod. I faced the camera up to what I imagined would be a good composition. I knew I'd have one chance to shoot this scene. If I got it wrong, I'd literally have to hike out of the canyon to dry off my camera and lens and go back in and do it again.
So, with the camera set up, I dialed in a manual exposure, focal point, and shutter speed. I had the image set to bracket a five shot burst. I grabbed my shutter release. Quickly, I removed the lens cap and clicked on the shutter release. I could hear snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. 5 images. I looked down and my lens was covered in water droplets from the massive waterfall.
Covering my gear, I exited the canyon and looked at the back of the display. The composition was perfect, the settings looked excellent, I couldn't have been happier with this shot! And to think, I was the only one here shooting this incredible waterfall while bus loads of photographers and tourists were a few hundred feet away shooting the more popular falls.
This image was honored as a stand out at the International Photography Awards in 2015.
