Photographers on the Golden Circle

The Golden Circle is the loop almost every visitor drives, and for a photographer it is the most forgiving region in Iceland: roughly 300 kilometres of paved road, the first stop an hour to an hour and a half from Reykjavík, and everyone back in the city by evening. That makes it the one region that works on an arrival day, on a long layover, or with grandparents and a pushchair in the party. Two of our locations carry it. Þingvellir is the rift valley where the North American and Eurasian plates pull apart — the Almannagjá gorge, the boardwalk up to Öxarárfoss and the Hakið platform above the whole valley. It is a national park and a UNESCO site, so paths only, and a drone needs a permit rather than optimism. Forty minutes further on, Geysir and Gullfoss sit ten minutes apart: Strokkur throws water twenty metres up every five to ten minutes, and Gullfoss folds a river a hundred metres wide twice into a hidden canyon, with a rainbow standing in the spray on sunny days. Plan around two things. Crowds peak between roughly eleven and four, when the coaches from the capital arrive, so early morning and the last hours of light are both quieter and better lit; in winter the sun stays low enough to keep the whole short day golden, and the paths ice over, which makes spikes part of the kit. Nothing here needs a hike, so the loop suits couples, proposals and families equally, and the natural shape of a session is Þingvellir first and Gullfoss last. One session normally stays inside one region — the distances elsewhere in Iceland do not fold into the same afternoon.