Post-wedding portraits · Reynisfjara, Iceland
Wedding portraits
on Iceland's black-sand coast.
My wife and I were married in Birmingham, then traveled to Iceland in August 2024 specifically to create wedding portraits. The final location wasn't chosen from a list before we landed—we spent a week looking for it.
The trip
The whole week was built around finding the right place to photograph.
We rented an SUV with a rooftop tent and drove Iceland's Ring Road, using the trip to scout environments that would feel substantial enough for the wedding clothes we had brought from home.
There were plenty of beautiful places. The question was which one would actually change the photographs.
By the time we reached the south coast, Reynisfjara was the clear choice. The black sand, pale surf, basalt formations, and open gray sky gave the white dress a contrast that felt unlike anything we could have made in Birmingham.
Reynisfjara at sunrise
Getting there early was part of making the photograph.
We camped near the beach so we could wake up around sunrise and reach Reynisfjara before the normal flow of visitors. That decision paid off. For a stretch that morning, we effectively had the beach to ourselves.
That solitude mattered. It gave us room to work slowly, use the scale of the coastline, and make images that felt quiet rather than crowded or hurried.
The weather was another matter. Wedding clothes are not particularly useful insulation on an Icelandic beach, so staying warm between photographs and then looking composed in front of the camera became part of the process.
Behind the photograph
I was on both sides of this trip.
Another photographer traveled with us as well, but the wedding portraits shown on this page are photographs I personally created of my wife at Reynisfjara.
That made the experience unusually personal: part wedding trip, part location scout, and part exercise in translating a place we had never worked in before into photographs that still felt like us.
Near Hálsanefshellir Cave
The finished frame was considerably more graceful than getting into position.
For the basalt portrait, we worked among the formations near Hálsanefshellir Cave. Reaching the position meant moving over sharp rock and sand in wedding shoes while keeping track of incoming waves.
It was cold, awkward, and not remotely elegant behind the scenes. That contrast is part of why I like the finished photograph: the environment is imposing, but the portrait still feels controlled.
Destination weddings & portraits
The place should leave a fingerprint.
Reynisfjara changed the scale, palette, movement, timing, and physical process behind these photographs. That is what interests me about destination work—not simply traveling somewhere beautiful, but making photographs that belong to that place.