Deep Blues

This is a shot from the beach near Jökulsárlón in Iceland. It's a breathtakingly beautiful place - but watch out! Those icebergs move with each wave. They are heavy, and they can do serious damage if they hit you.

For this shot, I wanted to show the beauty of the ice with an extremely simple composition. I used a long shutter speed - 30 seconds - to remove as much detail as possible from the waves to eliminate distractions. I chose a single iceberg as a point of interest in the foreground, and a second one behind to provide a subtle sense of place. The cloudy skies worked for me in this case - simplifying the composition even more, and adding a very deep tone to the sky.

The blue color is a result of heavily overcast skies, the rich reflected color in the water and ice, the very long shutter speed, and careful color balance choice in post processing.