What are your favorite subjects to photograph? Landscape, wild life, people, macro, animals, celestial features, decay?   You can find them all in Iceland.

After seeing photos of the waterfalls in Iceland and the Iceland exhibit at the Smithsonian Natural History, we decided to stop in Iceland on our way to Hungary. There are several advantages to this route- a shorter daylight trip instead of the longer overnight flight to other places in Europe, and possibly a lower air fare.

We decided to hire a guide with a small photo tour. I usually like to plan our own trips, but using a local resident enabled us to see places we could not find without someone who knows the area.
I searched Trip Advisor for Iceland photo tours. We selected Iceland Aurora Photo Tours and asked for the guide Olgeir Andressron because of all the positive comments about him at tripadvisor.com

This is not a general tour of Iceland. If is only for the specific region you select, and only goes to sites for great photography scenes. We sent Olgeir a wish list of things we were interested in. Every day he gave us suggestions. If we had enough waterfalls we would go somewhere else. He is a resident and took us to “secret” locations by opening gates to properties where he knows the owners. Olgeir has cell phone apps for predicting when and where Northern Lights can be viewed.

Waterproof hiking boots are necessary for some places.

Olgeir is very easy going, will give you instructions about photography if you ask, and encourage you to try new things like night photography.

You will need to make your own hotel reservations, and for his room too for the one night out of Reykjavik.  The hotels and B&B’s were mostly filled for the nights we were there so it is better to book early. Things are expensive. A taxi ride from the airport cost us $130 one way. Tipping is not expected.

We saw an extensive variety of scenes in the small area, about 200 miles back, that we toured in the south coast. I am eager to return to see other areas.