The meadow path between the two falls

Between the two famous falls runs six hundred metres of level grass at the foot of the cliff, with a line of smaller cascades dropping off the rock the whole way. Almost everyone marches it head-down between the two attractions. Used properly it is the best part of the location for actual portraits: no spray, no queue, no path etiquette, and a continuous backdrop of dark wet cliff and green moss.

This is where the walking, laughing, unposed half of a session happens. A longer lens along the cliff line stacks one small waterfall behind another; step out into the meadow and the whole escarpment becomes a wall behind the couple, with Seljalandsfoss shrinking to a white thread at one end. The cliff runs roughly north-south and faces west, so the evening sun rakes along it — in June and July that light holds until nearly midnight and the grass goes gold. In December, the four or five hours of daylight sit low and side-on, which does the same job faster.

It is also the wind and weather answer. The cliff blocks the northerlies, so on days when the open coast at Vík or Reynisfjara is unworkable, this strip is often still calm — the going-to-plan-B stop for photographers working the south coast.

Practical: the ground is grass, flat and easy, but wet underfoot most of the year and boggy after rain — flat shoes for the walk, good ones on arrival. It is farmland at the cliff base; stay on the worn path and off fenced ground, leave gates as you find them, and use the marked car parks at either end rather than the road verge.