10 Day Iceland 2024 Winter Photography Workshop

Develop your skills as a photographer, build an incredible portfolio, immersing yourself in the winter wonderland that is Iceland. This ten-day Iceland photo tour in January, 2023 is for amateur and aspiring photographers alike, and promises to expose you to some of the world’s most spectacular nature under ethereal lighting conditions.

You will get to see many of Iceland’s most iconic sites over the duration of this tour, such as the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, the waterfalls of the South Coast, the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon, and, with any luck, the awe-inspiring Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights.

Your guides are not just landscape and aurora photographers; they are Iceland enthusiasts and will be able to guide you to some of its most anticipated locations, allowing you to take fascinating, unique images of this winter wonderland. At each destination, your guides will be on hand to ensure that you are making the most of the lighting and subjects available, so that you return home with some incredible images that you can be proud of. Post-processing is an important part of creating enviable photographs, so your guides will be able to lead you through post processing to ensure your Iceland images are the best they can be. 

Dates: January 12th to January 21st 2024

Total Price: $6500 AUD

Iceland Itinerary 

Day 1 - Arrival into Reykjavik

Making your own travel arrangements to Iceland, and to our first hotel, we allow you enough time to settle into your shared room in Reykjavik and explore the city at your own pace (maybe make a trip to the Blue Lagoon to relax after your long flight). This vibrant, colourful city is also home to a beautiful harbour, iconic monuments and delicious local flavours to try.

At 7pm, your guides and group will meet in the lobby of your hotel, before heading out to a local restaurant for dinner. Here, you can learn your itinerary in more detail, get to know your fellow photographers and ask any questions you have about the next ten days ahead. 

As the Aurora is unpredictable, we need to take advantage of it when it's on display. So if it is present this evening we will head out and try to photograph the lights from a near by location.

You will spend the night in Reykjavík.

Day 2 - Seljalandsfoss, Bruarfoss, Reynisfjara, Vik

After exploring Reykjavik yourself on the first day, you will set off early, ready to discover the wonders of the South Coast. 

Iceland's South Coast is one of the country's most popular routes because it's home to some incredible landmarks. If you've heard of anyone mention the Golden Circle before, this is it. The majority of the major sights are visible from the main Ring Road, or a stone's throw from it, making it easy to visit and photograph multiple sites in a fairly short amount of time. This region is especially beautiful in Winter when the country may be blanketed in a layer of white snow. 

The first location you will reach is Seljalandsfoss waterfall. This narrow but powerful cascade falls in from a height of over sixty meters before a concave cliff. In decent conditions, albeit with a raincoat and camera protection, it can be fully encircled for some beautiful, unique perspectives.

Skógafoss, arguably the most famous waterfall on the Golden Circle route, is just a little further down the road from Seljalandsfoss, And although it's the same height, is far more powerful. You cannot go behind the water here but can ascend an adjacent staircase for a unique angle, or make the most of the stream in front of the waterfall for your foreground leading lines.

After enjoying these waterfalls, you will head to the famed black-sand-beach of Reynisfjara. This stretch is as mysterious and haunting as it is spectacular. Your main subjects will be the Reynisdrangar sea-stacks, two ‘trolls’ said to have been frozen in the light of the sun, standing tall from the choppy waves. The inky black pebbles and imposing rocky cliffs also provide excellent contrasts to the ocean for unique images. As the golden hour rolls into night time, depending on the conditions after dinner, we will hopefully head out again to capture the sights beneath the aurora borealis.

You will spend the night in the quaint village of Vík, home to just 400 locals, but the most important town on the South Coast serving Iceland's tourist trade.

Day 3 - Vik - Höfn

On your third day, you will leave Vík and finish journeying along the South Coast to the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon and Vatnajökull National Park. 

Before reaching the glacier lagoon, you will divert to the Skaftafell Nature Reserve. Part of the Vatanjokull National Park, which is in fact one of the largest ice caps in the world, this is a paradise for photographers. It is here where you will spend the majority of the day, finding unique subjects to shoot, including glacial tongues, lakes, waterfalls, forests and lava landscapes.

After making the most of this spectacular place, you will head over to Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon to catch the incredible icebergs and glacier as the sun sets, and hopefully have a chance to shoot it beneath the Northern Lights.

Jökulsárlón is often considered to be Iceland’s most beautiful location, and you will have no doubts as to why it is held in such high esteem when you begin your shoot. Here, vast icebergs break from a glacial tongue, then sail across an enormous lagoon towards the ocean. Their coloration is vivid, scale mesmerising, and the fact you can practice your wildlife photography on the seals who live in the area only adds to the magical experience.

You will retire for the night in the south-east of Iceland.

Day 4 - Jökulsárlón, Vatnajokull National Park

Today, we head are venturing out onto the glacier! The team at Local Guide will lead us to an ice cave for a half day glacier trip. Depending on weather, and availability - the ice cave may vary from year to year. This once in a lifetime experience will require a medium level of fitness, as we can be walking anywhere from half an hour to two hours on the ice.

After returning from the glacier, your guides will also take you to a much lesser-known glacier lagoon, Fjallsárlón. Here, you will be able to take more time with your shots, as there will be far fewer crowds. Though not as vast as Jökulsárlón, Fjallsárlón is still a spectacular site, and you will, in fact, get a better view of the glacial tongue leading into the lake.

You will remain at Jökulsárlón until sunset, and head to the adjacent Diamond Beach, where the icebergs are washed upon the shore and glitter in the surf and sun. This is one of the best places in the country for photographers to practice with exposure and light effects, the black sand contrasting with the crystallised icebergs and heaving sea.

If the aurora borealis did not show the previous night, you and your guides will keep an extra keen eye out for them tonight; capturing them above the lagoons or beach is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

You will spend another night in the Jökulsárlón area.

Day 5 - Höfn

Your fifth day will be your final full day in south-east Iceland; you will, therefore, use it to shoot at the sites you have thus far missed.

The main one of these is Vestrahorn, on the Stokknes Peninsula. This is one of Iceland’s few gabbro mountains, and stark and dramatic as a result. It stands alone, surrounded by black sands and the seething waters of the North Atlantic, with barren, ashy slopes and jagged peaks. It is a fascinating subject, and you will be able to capture it from a variety of different angles.

Your photo guides will take you from here to some more unique destinations within Vatnajökull National Park, where you will attain excellent vantage points from which you can photograph the region’s incredible landscapes and Europe’s largest ice cap, Vatnajökull.

You will return to Jökulsárlón for your final sunset shoot in the area.

Day 6 - Höfn to Vik

Day six will largely consist of traveling from Vatnajökull National Park back to Vik. You will, however, make multiple stops en route, where you can stretch your legs and continue to build your photography portfolio. On our way back to Vik we will make stops at Jökulsárlón, Fjallsárlón, Fjaðrárgljúfur and if conditions are right we may make the walk into Secret Canyon. 

Once in Vik, we may return to Skogarfoss and Seljalandfoss. However, there is more to the area than these beautiful waterfalls. The options here are endless, we could photograph Dyrhólaey or if conditions allow we can make our way out to Reynisdrangar (tide dependent). 

We will spend the next two nights around this area to give us ample time to photograph the many waterfalls and landscapes in the area. At different times of the day and in different weather, these sites will all attain a distinct kind of beauty, and allow for some unique photographs. 

We will spend the night in Vik. If the Northern lights are on display we will top the night off and head out for a final evening of Aurora hunting at the many stunning locations.

Day 7 - Vik 

You will wake in Vik a quiet little Icelandic holiday village, after breakfast we will head out to shoot sunrise at a nearby location of Sólheimasandur, the infamous DC3 plane wreck. 

We will chase the light today and focus on locations that we did not get optimal light during our first visit to the area. We will make our way to the relatively hidden waterfall of Kvernufoss. 

If the weather is not on our side, we will focus on post production and deliver photoshop tuition to the group in our hotel. With sunset fast approaching, we will head atop Dyrhólaey to capture the hole in the wall and the vistas of the black sand beaches below. 

We will again spend the night in Vik, and capture sunset at one of the array of locations nearby. Again, if the weather gods are on our side we will head out and chase the elusive Aurora. 

Day 8 - Snaefellsnes Peninsula

On Day 8, we will leave Vik and will make our way to the Pingvellir National Park. Again there are waterfalls and incredible canyons here to photograph, some of which are famous for appearing in the Game of Thrones series. The national park is where the European and North American tectonic plates meet. In some areas you can see up to 40 metres down between the earths crust. 

Your focus today will be on the northern coastline of the Peninsula. The seascapes here of Breiðafjörður fjord are stunning, particularly in clear weather when you are able to see all the way across to the massive mountains of the Westfjords. If you are lucky, you might even spot orcas in the water; this is where they are most commonly found, and autumn marks the beginning of the season with the most sightings. 

The highlight, however, will be Mount Kirkjufell, a standalone peak that rises sharply from the coastline above the charming waterfall of Kirkjufellsfoss. You will spend a considerable amount of time finding the perfect angles to shoot it from, waiting for the opportunities that come with the golden hour. Once again you also have the opportunity to capture it beneath the northern lights if they come into fruition this evening. 

You will spend the night on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. 

Day 9 - Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Today, you will wake up on Snæfellsnes Peninsula, often nicknamed ‘Little Iceland’ due to the wealth of diverse sites and landscapes in the area. You will continue your exploration of Snæfellsnes. There is so much to see here, it would not do the sites justice to rush through them all in one session. 

Throughout the day, you will make stops to shoot many of them. You will focus, for example, on the dramatic, craggy coastlines around Arnarstapi, where you can find hexagonal basalt columns, and Lóndrangar, the site of two mighty sea-stacks which resemble a fortress. You will also capture the haunting Buðahraun lava field, contrasted with the quaint, historic hamlet of Buðir. 

Of course, you will also have the chance to use the crown jewel of the Peninsula, Snæfellsjökull glacier and volcano, as your subject throughout the day. 

Snæfellsnes is incredible in all seasons, yet has a special magic in its autumnal colours. What only adds to this is the chance you have to witness and shoot the Northern Lights when you finally retire on the Peninsula for the evening, after a full day of adventure. 

On your ninth day, our last on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, where will head out for sunrise & sunset and capture some more of the amazing sights. We will look at the weather and choose a location depending on the conditions. 

Day 10 - Return to Reykjavik

You will then make your return to Reykjavik where we will stop at a number of sights along the way like the Akrane's Lighthouse, also a few more iconic locations along the Golden circle leading back into Reykjavik. Sadly, today is your final day of the workshop, we will say our goodbyes once arriving back into town. We recommend arranging an extra night in Keflavik before you fly out. If you choose to stay on in Iceland, you could capture some urban landscapes around Reykjavík. Comparing them to those you took on your first day will no doubt show a marked improvement in your techniques.

When on the plane back home or to your next destination, you will no doubt still be in awe of your new talents, your incredible portfolio of images from Iceland and the amazing places you have seen in Iceland, let alone the incredible time you've had with new photographers and friends.

Expressions of interest

Price:

$6500

(Per person, twin share)

*Single supplement is available for an additional fee (if interested, single supplement must be booked at least 6 months in advance).

Maximum Guests:

We like to keep our workshops small - this workshop is limited to 8 guests. If less than 6 guests are booked into our workshop by September 2023, we will look at cancelling the workshop & refunding all payments.

Payment Schedule:

Deposit: $750 (non refundable) at time of booking

4 x payments of $1437.50 due - May 31st 2023, July 31st 2023, September 30th 2023, November 30 2023

If deposit is made after stated payment schedule date, catch up payment is required. By booking, you agree to the terms above.

What’s included in the Price?

Two professional photography guides

In-field tuition on how to compose, camera settings, capture techniques, and using filters

Transportation for duration of workshop

Twin share accommodation

All Breakfast’s (lunch and dinner to be purchased by participant - we try to eat as a group as often as possible)

Post processing sessions with workshop leaders.

Ice caves half day tour - with renowned local company, Local Guide

What’s not included in the Price?

Airfares or transport to & from Iceland

Airport transfer to Keflavik Airport

Daily lunch & dinner’s

Alcohol, beverages and snacks

Camera gear & sufficient clothing to be provided by each participant themselves ( we will provide a list of what we recommend to use)

2024 Iceland Winter Workshop Leaders

Cancellation Policy and Refunds

Non refundable deposit is made at time of booking.

Cancellation must occur at least 150 days prior to workshop commencement (September 4th, 2023) otherwise full payment is agreed to be paid. if you are able to find a substitute for your spot on the workshop a refund will be made. We will assist in trying to find a replacement.

If cancelling prior to September 4th, 2023 - full refund of payments will be made (except deposit)

Workshop may be cancelled if less than 6 guests book - participants will be notified by September 5th, 2023 if this is occur (we do not recommend booking flights before this date).

Disclaimer

The tour is always dependent on weather, as in the arctic weather can be highly unpredictable. When it comes to the Northern Lights, while they are most likely to be seen between September and April, there is no guarantee that they will appear at any given time. Dream Photography will do everything they can to get you out to photograph this natural phenomena.

If the volcano is active during our workshop, Dream Photography Workshops will do their utmost to get participants out to photograph the eruption.

Tour leaders will not be held accountable for any location on itinerary not visited. Time is to be shared between guests. Tour leaders may change at any given time.

Post processing sessions will only occur if time allows - but we aim to include two sessions during the workshop.

A medium level of fitness is required for this trip, as we will be operating in the arctic circle we may experience snow, ice, wet weather and extremely windy conditions. As with all landscape photography we will spend a fair amount of time outdoors. Due to the extreme nature of the arctic we recommend winter clothing that is water proof and well insulated. 

By purchasing deposit, you agree to above terms.

In the event of natural disasters, or pandemics, Dream Photography Workshops cannot be held responsible for workshops not being able to be run. We will do our best to offer alternative dates, however this is not guaranteed & Dream Photography Workshops cannot be held responsible if such events take place.