Búðakirkja – Winter Spectrum

Low sun, long light.

Two views of Búðakirkja in Snæfellsnes on a winter’s morning.

The  blood-red slit at the horizon before sunrise in the first photo is not Photoshop saturation slider abuse, but an uncommon convergence of conditions available at these high latitudes. With the sun grazing the horizon, the light travels an unusually long path through the atmosphere. Shorter wavelengths are stripped out by scattering, leaving the deep reds. A low cloud deck blocks direct illumination and forces the light into a narrow horizontal slit, preserving that saturated band.

The second image, taken later the same morning, with the sun slightly higher, shows the spectrum rebalancing as the colour relaxes from red to orange.

Added to the Light in Iceland collection.