Friday Photo #35 – Moonlight Over Eggum

Photo: Moonlight over Mustaren, Eggum, Vestvågøya, Lofoten Islands, Norway.  Feb 3, 2012.  17:13

To my dismay, barely any snow covered to lower elevations of the islands upon my arrival at the beginning of February 2012.  This was in quite a contrast to my first real winter experience on the islands in January 2010, where it snowed so much that I got my car stuck several times and had to be pulled out.  I had traveled to the islands imagining what scenes I would find and how I would photograph them, and yet I arrived to something totally different.

The lack of snow left much of the landscape somewhat drab looking, especially in the flat light of my first days on the islands.  And so I found myself looking for new perspectives that I hadn’t though of.  At this point in my previous winter experience, I’d never really seen ice, as it had always been covered in snow before.  And so on my second night while camping out at Eggum I took a little wander.

By evening the the weather had calmed by what had thus far been some pretty blustery weather.  Though Eggum is often one of those places, depending on wind direction, is totally blown out (usually), or sometimes eerily calm, such as this night.  I tried some seascapes, but they weren’t working out particularly well, so I turned around and pointed my camera towards the near full moon just as some clouds began appearing from behind the mountain.

I stood there for a while in the cold and silence, the crashing of waves a few meters behind me the only sound to be heard.  Some minutes later, a pair of otters began wandering around the rock near me, oblivious to my presence; perhaps it was so cold they couldn’t smell me, or I’d only been on the islands for a couple days so I wasn’t too ripe yet.  I’ve seen otters many times on the islands, but this night, in the darkness, was the closest I’ve ever been to them.

Camera Info:
Nikon D700
Nikon 16-35mm f/4
16mm
ISO 200
f 11
121 seconds
WB Daylight