Samantha + Michael | Iceland Vow Renewal | Reynisfjara
I’ve now been doing wedding photography in Iceland almost for as long as i’ve been a professional photographer! It’s become such a special place, that I always feel honoured to visit. Back in December I hopped on a plane back to Iceland, to join Samantha & Michael for their intimate vow renewal on Reynisfjara, the black sand beach on the South Coast, along Route 1.
Iceland in December is quite surreal if you’re used to the balmy comfortable and wet climate of the UK. Not only the bracing cold, but the lack of daylight hours. We had a grand total of 4 hours 30 minutes of daylight for the entire shoot, so it had to be planned to perfection, to make the absolute most of that time. That said, I think this shoot felt as far from “Iceland in winter” as possible. Beautiful mild weather, with incredible sunlight all day long.
I met up with Samantha & Michael in Reykjavik at 9am, and we drove together in the darkness of the night for the first 90 minutes. Very slowly the deep blue glow beyond the horizon got warmer, as we approached the huge imposing cliffs running along the South Coast of Iceland. We hopped out for a few quick pictures before reaching Reynisfjara, to make the most of the beautiful sunrise.
We saved the main section of portraits to the black sand beach, where Samantha & Michael took some time to renew their vows to each other as the sun rose behind them, over the Atlantic Ocean. The waves crashing along that section of the coast sounds like a constant loud roar, but it feels like such a peaceful location, and an idyllic place for them to share a really personal moment of renewing their commitments to each other.
Although we only get just over 4 hours of sunlight in the depths of winter in Iceland, the positive is that the sun doesn’t rise that high above the horizon. So those 4 hours feel like a constant beautiful golden hour. We could shoot portraits throughout the day, without much concern for finding patches of shade.
We explored the cave and basalt columns on Reynisfjara, before making our way round into Vik to visit the beach there, which has a very different feel to it. From there we headed back in the direction of Reykjavik, stopping at Dyrhólaey. The view from the top of the cliffs is one of my favourite spots in Iceland, and never fails to make me feel incredibly small!
By this point in the day the sun was on it’s way back down towards the sunset, so we managed a very quick trip to Sólheimajökull glacier but made a fairly quick exit as we wanted to save the best light for our visits to the waterfalls of Skogafoss and Seljalandsfoss which looks absolutely incredible at that time of the day, and was a wonderful conclusion to the trip to Iceland. All the very best to Samantha & Michael, who it was a pleasure spending the day with.
