The blue church at the top of the rainbow road

Seyðisfjarðarkirkja is a wooden church painted a soft powder blue, and the short street leading to it, Norðurgata, has been painted across its whole width in rainbow stripes. The two together make the picture the town is known for: colour running away underfoot, the blue church closing the view, and behind it the steep green fjord walls with waterfalls coming down them.

It is a composition with one correct axis. Stand in the middle of the painted street with a longer lens and the stripes compress into bands under the church; move to the side and it falls apart. Once you have that, the variations are easy — couple walking toward camera along the stripes, a low frame using the paint as a foreground plane, or a tight portrait against the church's blue boarding, which is a rare warm-cool background in a country of black and grey.

The fjord is deep and its walls are high, which decides the light. In midwinter the sun is low or behind the ridge for much of the short day, giving hours of soft even light that suits the painted colours; in summer the sun comes down the fjord in the evening and lands on the church front. June and July also give near-continuous daylight, and the street is empty late at night except on days a cruise ship or the ferry is in — worth checking the harbour schedule, because those days change the town completely.

A few courtesies and cautions. It is a working church with services and events; check before booking and ask rather than assume about the interior. Norðurgata is a real street with traffic and residents' doorways along it, so work between cars and keep the pavement clear. In winter the paint is under snow or ice as often as not, and the mountain road in over Fjarðarheiði closes in storms — check road conditions before committing to a session here at all.