The lagoon shore

Jökulsárlón is a lagoon of meltwater between the snout of Breiðamerkurjökull and the sea, kept full of icebergs by the glacier calving at its head. From the gravel shore by the car park you can walk in either direction and the scene rebuilds itself every few metres: blue-white ice in the foreground, the glacier wall and the peaks of Vatnajökull behind, seals surfacing in the channels between the floes.

The ice does the composing; your job is light and patience. Sunrise is the classic — pink and orange on the ice before the first coaches, which begin arriving mid-morning and never really stop. The bergs move on the tide, so the foreground you scouted an hour ago will have rearranged itself; treat that as a feature. Overcast days saturate the blues in the ice rather than killing them.

Walk east from the car park along the channel toward the bridge and the crowd thins fast; this is also where seals hunt on the moving tide. The rules that matter: never step onto ice, floating or beached — bergs roll without warning — and keep back from the water's edge on the channel, where the current is fast and the shore undercut. Dress warmer than the forecast suggests; the lagoon makes its own cold wind off the glacier.