Dettifoss is the most powerful waterfall in Iceland, and all of Europe. Much like a supercell on the Great Plains, its sweeping majesty commands appreciative gaze and tempts rapt fixation. Yet like a big, rotating storm in the sky, it also generates interesting and flat-out cool smaller-scale features on the side that are well worth attention with the eye and camera lens. This was a continual left-to-right plume of fine spray drifting off the cascade, backlit by an ideally positioned, mid-afternoon sun. Its streamers and tendrils changed fluidly by the fraction of a second, ensuring uniqueness of every shot. The contrast between the spray field and the shaded canyon below, selectively framed, yielded this abstract and seldom-captured angle to one of the world’s most famous and photographed natural attractions. It’s also a great example of a mechanically generated cloud in nature.
10 NNW Holssel, Iceland (21 Aug 14) Looking WSW
65.8153, -16.384