“Sunlight will always follow in a clouds wake.” 
― Anthony T. Hincks

One of the aspects of Iceland that I enjoyed most was that nothing lasts very long. It does not rain all day, nor snow all day, sunshine comes and goes, and the clouds above shift and morph by the minute.

Oh, the clouds and light of Iceland, they are simply unbelievable. Clouds come in layers, each layer with a mind of its own, passing and sliding between one another. One moment you are looking at a dark bank of low clouds on the horizon and minutes later, they slide back like a magical curtain revealing a mountain hidden among them.

The volcanic cone pictured here is Strútur, and ancient volcano in the highlands of western Iceland. As we ventured further inland, seeking the many wonderful waterfalls, one of the roads we had planned to drive turned out to be a “F” Road, one of Iceland’s many interior mountains roads, generally only accessible with rugged four-wheel drive vehicles and largely closed in winter months. This road was marked as a side road on our map, but as we ventured onto it the signage indicated that is was, in fact” an “F” Road, meaning our rental insurance was null and void if we travelled that road.

This slight setback caused us to turn back and take another road to our destination. That decision put us on a road that briefly headed deeper into Iceland’s backcountry and facing a think bank of clouds reaching across the distant horizon of low, rolling hills and lava fields.

As we progressed along this road, the clouds pulled back and revealed this wonderful sight. Strútur, is a large volcanic cone and is 937 meters high. You can see where the cone collapsed and the lava flowed outwards to where I made the photo.

Soon after I made the photo, the clouds rolled back in and obscured the mountain once more.

Once again, Iceland provided me with a brief and wonderful vista and then took it back again, all within mere minutes.

Nikon D800
Tamron SP 70-200mm f/2.8 Di VC USD @ 116mm
1/320 sec, f/9.0 ISO 200

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