The Garðar basalt columns, the stepped wall

Beside the cave, the cliff at Garðar breaks into a wall of vertical basalt columns whose broken ends form a set of natural steps rising out of the sand. It is architecture made by cooling lava: rows of hexagons, sharp shadows between them, and a scale that flatters people standing anywhere near it.

Three frames live here. The couple seated on the low steps with the wall behind them, tight and graphic. The wide version, taken from the sand looking up so the columns fan out overhead. And the compressed one, made with a long lens from further along the beach, where the wall becomes an abstract pattern with two small figures at its base. Overcast light shows the texture best; low side-light in winter is the only sun that helps, because midday sun flattens the columns into grey.

This is the corner of the beach with the least room, and the crowd concentrates here: everyone wants the steps. Sunrise is the only reliable answer, and in winter that is a civilised ten in the morning. In June, the sun barely sets and the beach is close to empty around midnight — the best light and the fewest people arrive together.

Safety again, because the steps are only twenty metres from the surf. Sneaker waves at Reynisfjara run far up the beach without warning and have killed people; the columns are exactly where visitors get caught, because they climb up, turn their backs to the sea for the photo, and are hit. Check the official beach warning and swell forecast, keep watch on the water at all times, and do not climb high on the columns — the rock is slick, the drop is onto stone, and rescue here is slow.