Hallgrímskirkja & the rainbow street

Hallgrímskirkja's stepped concrete facade — inspired by Iceland's basalt columns — closes the view up Skólavörðustígur, and since the street's lower stretch was painted in permanent rainbow stripes the two make a single composition: colour underfoot, the pale church rising at the end. Shoot from the middle of the painted section with a longer lens to stack the stripes against the facade.

Early morning is the workable window. The street is pedestrianised but lively from mid-morning on, with café terraces and shoppers in every frame; before nine you can put a couple alone on the rainbow. The church faces west, so its facade takes warm light in the evening — a reason to come back at the other end of the day. The tower deck (paid, lift) gives the classic view over the coloured tin roofs toward the harbour and Esja.

What goes wrong: tourists photographing the same stripes cross your frame constantly by midday, and the wind funnels up the street hard enough to matter for dresses and hair. On the parvis, keep an eye on the Leif Erikson statue's plinth — it photobombs the symmetrical facade shot unless you frame deliberately with or without it.