Reykjanesviti and the Valahnúkamöl stacks

Reykjanesviti stands on Bæjarfell at the very tip of the peninsula — a 31-metre white tower, first lit in 1878 and rebuilt in 1908, still the landfall light for ships heading to Reykjavík and Keflavík. It is a five-minute walk up a grass track from the car park, and the hill gives you the tower against sky with nothing else in the frame.

Below it, Valahnúkamöl is the other half of the session: a beach of round black boulders, cliffs full of nesting seabirds in summer, and the Karl sea stack standing offshore where the Atlantic hits hardest. Shoot from the boulder shelf with the stack behind the couple, or climb the low ridge for the lighthouse and the sea in one wide frame.

West-facing means sunset is the hour here, and in winter the low sun runs sideways along the tower and the cliff faces for most of the short day. Summer gives long evenings and midnight light instead. Overcast still works: the white tower against grey sky is a graphic image rather than a lost one.

Two cautions and one bonus. The sea at Valahnúkamöl is violent and unpredictable — stay high on the boulders and never turn your back on the water. The wind at the top of the hill can knock people off balance, so no veils or long trains up there in a gale. And the coast road back toward Grindavík passes Brimketill, a lava rock pool where the surf boils in a natural cauldron, five minutes away and worth adding to the same session.