I’ll skip my regular trip report today to bring you a guest post from Peter. He had such an amazing photography night last night we thought we would share it with you.

30 Minutes of Magical Light at the Hellnar Church

We have had some interesting weather here on the Snaefellsnes peninsula, mostly dominated by a constant 20 mph wind and gusts to 40 mph. Last night the clouds looked pretty good from our room and I hunkered down for two hours, with a glass (or 2) of wine, watching the light and the clouds change.

Did I mention it was very windy and very cold? Sometimes, you’re lucky and sometimes, very lucky. Well, I was very lucky because our room faced the Hellnar Church and was pretty much the southwest, so all I had to do was set up my camera and tripod in the window and have a glass of wine (or 2) and stay out of the cold wind.

Here is the scene at 6 PM when I started to get excited about the possibility of a good sunset. I made 57 photos for the next two hours, but the final 30 minutes was when all the magic light happened.

A quick note on equipment for the technical people: Gitzo tripod legs with a Really Right Stuff BH-55 ball head; Fujifilm XT-5 camera with a Fujinon 18-135mm f\4.0 lens with a Singh-Ray Mor Slo circular neutral density 5-stop filter. All the photos are 27-38 mm focal length at f\16 with a shutter speed of 4-15 seconds at 200 ISO.

Here is what I saw from 7:23 PM until 8:03 PM.

The last 13 minutes was a stunningly quick change from blue to orange to pink, and then it was over, just…like…that.